March 2023. My second March in Montréal. L’équinoxe de printemps, the spring equinox, has arrived again. And I have a confession to make. I think I have accidentally drunk the Montréal winter kool-aid. I say this because I caught myself thinking, just for a minute — maybe more than a minute — that this winter seemed a little short. Just a little. Believe me, that is not a thought that I expected to have. Don’t get me wrong, I feel the effects of the cloudy and snowless days of winter, as well as the sunny but bitterly cold ones. But what I have not felt, or perhaps don’t remember feeling since I lived in Montréal as a child, is a little sad (just a little) to see winter go.
I’m not quite sure what it is. Maybe I’ll understand it better next year. Then again, maybe I’ll want to take all of this back if there is snow falling from the sky in April, or worse, what I am pretty sure no one in Montréal wants, snow in the month of May. In the meantime, though, that drop of kool-aid has me wondering, was it Montréal en Lumière from the last week of February through the first week of March (which includes Nuit Blanche à Montréal)? Or was it because, thinking that I might find it difficult to muster enough courage to get out in the cold, I got a ticket to at least one event for each winter month, whether at Place des Arts or Ausgang Plaza or the SAT or the Cinéma du Musée.
Maybe it’s because of the skating rinks in almost every park? In a park I was walking past one early afternoon, a truck was directing a firehose-wide cascade of water onto a snow-covered hill. I witnessed the makeshift toboggan runs turn into ice slides. Montréal winter, how could I not love you after seeing that? And let’s not even mention, what is, at least to me, the surprising effectiveness of the déneigement.
Where were we? That this winter was (almost) too short in Montréal. Such nonsense, madness, I know. Fair enough. It’s the kool-aid talking. I imagine I’ll change my mind about this every winter. Or maybe every few days during the last six (or eight, on no!) weeks of winter weather. That’s okay, I can live with that.
Happily. In my winter gear when I am outside. With the candles lit when I am home. And in good company among those who venture out, whether for a trek on the Montréal winter tundra, to chat in coffee shops, to gather around dining tables, to perch at wine bars, or to pour into performance halls, bars and night clubs.
All. Winter. Long.
a few words ... from Montréal 