My upstairs neighbour turned 30.
Growing up, neighbours were people whose names I didn’t remember and whom my mother would talk to for hours on the driveway; people who knew your life but didn’t know you, to be avoided at all costs. Paralysing suburbia, filled with characters straight out of the Diary of a Nobody. Growing up, I swore I would never have a driveway or silly neighbours. I would be a city girl through and through, living a life of anonymity amongst many.
I moved to the Plateau Mont-Royal in 2015. Home to the original bicycle path and the endless rows of townhouse-plexes, it is one of the most densely populated districts in Montreal. Low crime rate, if one excludes the pervasive bicycle theft. When I first moved here, there was a Starbucks on my street. 12 months later, that Starbucks had shut down for lack of foot traffic: the locals were affronted at the big brand and chose to go to one of the other 6 coffee shops on the street. The perfect spot for me.
In 2018, a new coffee opened up one block from my home: a wifi-free zone, with personable owners, eclectic art décor and the best lattes I’d ever tasted – including in France! Suffering from crippling social anxiety and depression at the time, I would spend my weekends in that coffee shop, reading my books, eavesdropping and getting my social dose by proxy. Slowly, oh so slowly, I began talking to the owners and baristas, and through them, I met many of the other patrons. My life shifted from being dangerously isolated into one filled with interesting conversations, friendly acquaintances and musical discoveries: Amy Winehouse, Patrick Watson, Dominique Fils-Aimé, Orkestra Popular San Bomba and many others.
When the pandemic hit in spring 2020, the coffee shop closed down for several months: the restrictions in Montreal and Quebec were amongst the harshest outside of Asia. I was completely alone. No family in town, friends all safely ensconced in their suburban homes with their white picket fences, zoning rules preventing travel to and from the city, I was terrified by the virulence of my loneliness. It is possible the coffee shop reopened for takeout as early as May 2020 and my memory has stretched time in accordance to the miserable experience of those early pandemic months; from what I remember it reopened in February 2021, and we were a dozen patrons gathered outside on the sidewalks, safely socially distanced in the freezing winter air, desperate for a chat and the opportunity to connect with local acquaintances. In the following months, the sidewalk next to the coffeeshop would provide most of the social interaction in the neighbourhood, one of the rare opportunities for connecting during the pandemic.
In March 2021 my favourite barista Valérie (*) announced that she was moving to the neighbourhood with her spouse; imagine my delight when we realised they would be my upstairs neighbours! In 2021, as the pandemic rules were relaxed slightly, I was allowed to occasionally visit households of less than 5 people in my capacity of “person living alone”. What better way to spend Friday nights than by climbing a flight of stairs and talking for hours on end, catching up on the lives of all our mutual acquaintances, debating the meaning of life vs the art of a good cocktail. No better vaccine for 12 months of loneliness!
Right before Christmas 2021, on the very day I was supposed to drive up to Quebec city to see my family, I came down with Covid for the first time. My family was sick with worry, until I told them that Valérie was getting me fresh groceries and cough syrup from the pharmacy and checking in regularly via text to see how I was doing. My family was grateful, as was I: I pride myself on being a strong independent woman who don’t need no man, but it sure feels comforting knowing that the odds of me being a spinster who dies and is only discovered days later when the stench of my putrefying body triggers complaints with the property managers are materially lessened by Valérie’s caring presence nearby.
What do you get someone like Valérie for their 30th birthday? Someone so full of life, intelligence, humour? And bravery: she walked away from a promising career in law to pursue her desire to co-own the local community coffee shop, and I for one am so grateful she did. She is the glue that binds us all together, and we are the better for it.
Well for starters, you shop local. What better than the bookshop just across the street from the coffee shop, known for its curated offering of left-leaning, feminist and decolonial stories. A gem of a store, where the owner will listen to you ramble on for a few minutes to an hour and then in an instant recommend 2-5 perfect suggestions. A store so eclectic, you never know what you will find, just like you never know what conversation you might overhear in the coffeeshop just across the street.
Next, you celebrate one strong woman by highlighting the story of another strong woman. Josephine Baker was badass, not least because of her refusal to live life anyone’s rules other than her own. Artiste, spy, pilot, mother, civil rights advocate. She was barely getting started at the age of 30!
Third, you steer away from the conventional by selecting a different storytelling medium: biographical graphic novels are a genre, did you know? I didn’t! Nothing can capture Josephine’s voice or moves, but a visual storytelling is much more dynamic and appropriate than staid words on a page.
Lastly, you sneak home and curl up on the couch and read the book for yourself, as quality control, taking great care not to damage the spine or ruffle the feathers. Lose track of time, and wake up 3h later, groggy from the deep immersion into a stranger-than-fiction herstory. Forget to wrap it, and excitedly run up the stairs and knock impulsively on the door, because you can’t wait a second longer to give it. Wait impatiently, only to determine Valérie is not home, so you leave it on her doorstep, and walk back downstairs to your cozy apartment and pick up the next book from your bonus book haul from the store.
I love my Montreal neighbourhood. I really do.
(*) There is no real anonymity in the Plateau, but we can try. Valérie is not her real name.
- Méchants Pinsons, 1546 Laurier Est, Montréal, Qc.
- Instagram handle: @mechantspinsons
- Article that captures the magic of the place: Y a pas le wifi?
The Montreal book shop:
- Librarie Un livre à soi, 1575 Laurier Est, Montréal, Qc.
- Instagram handle: @unlivreasoimtl
- Article that paints the cultural importance of this physical bookstore: Les librairies qui savent lirent les gens
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