en route to Montreal, Canada
It’s funny, writing this now, on route to Montreal. It’s nearing 11 PM eastern standard time, and I had left for Montreal airport at 4 for a 5:45 flight. And this plane is heading right back to where we started from, back to Montreal. I’m stressed out, but I’m not upset. I just hoped I could land at Chicago instead to see my cousins there, but that won’t be happening. Instead, I’ll spend the night alone at the airport at Montreal, one bears my own name in its entirity, something I have not done since February of 04 in Frankfurt, Germany. I was on my way back to Djibouti, then, and the plane was taking off at 5AM.
The lady next to me teaches general english class at Illionois State but since her husband teaches at U of Chicago, she doesn’t see him often. 150 miles seperate the 2 campus. When I land, a 30 minute, $40 Canadian taxi ride will seperate me and my friend. But it would be 12:30 by the time I get there, and I have taken enough time away from her already. I’ve never felt so close yet so far from her, emotionally and physically.
So now that I’ve been circling around waiting for the winds to settle at Chicago for 5 hours, was this trip worth it? Even if I had to pay double what I did ($750) and even if I knew of the trouble I would have getting to and from Montreal, the answer is a resounding absolutely yes, I would do it all over again. She was and is worth so much more than that.
It’s weird, though, how I’ve never really known her. Between kindergarten and now, I must have spent 3 full days with her within those 17 years. And the memories of our childhood were nothing more than embedded by my mother’s recollection. So it was with some hesitation and skepticism that I made my way to Montreal. I had no intention of boring her nor wasting her time.
It’s amazing, too, how a friendship that penetrate deeper than face value can play a much more significant role than the times we’ve never shared. It wasn’t like that to begin with, of course, with so much courtesy mixed in with so many polite apologies. But by the end of the third day, we buried most of that. And the friendship that was our mothers’ legacy was finally redefined on our own accord.
Perhaps all of that is just a simple testimony of the great friendship that our mothers shared. Our older brothers were born close to each other, and we were but 3 months apart. But I feel lucky. Damn lucky. Even if the very idea of her presence was the only thing that my mother left behind for me, I would be perfectly satisfied.
After all these miles and years we’ve spent apart, we’re not so different. I see signs of ambition that we share, the same love for culture and respect for people. But the direction of the ambition is different. Her destiny lies in the realm that few people would dare challenge, and mine lies within a lucrative company in a country she has almost forbidden herself to. I see myself retiring in Colorado, in desolution surrounded by more snow than people most times of the year. Her, in a busy city reflective of New York or Montreal. Me, a political agenda remains a secondary objective at best, her a lifelong pursuit. Me wanting to settle soon after having traveled a bit, her an untamable free spirit that can only be satisfied by constantly exposing herself to a new world. And my conceited arrogance can only be a deterrent to her at best.
But there are no regrets of this journey, only true memories of a time well spent, of a time I learned to loathe only for its inability to slow down. And if that meant I would still need to spend 24 hours stuck alone in a city whose language I did not understand, then so be it. I found much more than what I could have asked for in Montreal.