I am in Cafe Olimpico on St-Viateur. This is a place I’ve wanted to go since the time when I lived here but have never before got around to visiting. It’s good. Old-fashioned decor, the way cafes used to be in the golden ages, but shiny and loved not a speck of dust; not a theme park either, this is a neighbourhood cafe (even if there’s the odd souvenir to take)—it’s busy, but not overcrowded (I’m able to get a table both times I’m here, no trouble; it’s a comfy kind of busy, a bustle), and friendly. I chat with the barista a bit, say I used to live in Montreal but never went there, am back in town from Vancouver and needed to come now. I take his recommendation (a cappuccino with a dust of dry chocolate, not far off what I’d have got anyway but it feels nicer) a breakfast sandwich (I’m hungry), and a bag of beans. Then a tea for my throat, once the coffee is gone—which is much better today It will continue to get better, one day at a time, until it is gone.

This is my Mile End day. I wasn’t sure which day that would be, or if there would really be a day here at all, but it turns out it’s today. It came to me that I could do it this morning, as the coffee was brewing. I didn’t want to sit around and do nothing while I was waiting for the evening, after all—I’m only in town for a weeks so might as well fill up my time.

I look the bus up St-Laurent (because, thank you very much, but I am not trudging up the Main on foot in this weather) and got off at Bernard. I always prefer to start at the top like that and work my way down.

But before anything else, I went over to the big empty lot—where I set a favourite story that I still need to finish—to take pictures. It’s a place that’s actually called “Champ des Possibles,” and it’s a couple blocks to the east of the main in a former industrial sector. Something about it captures my imagination: even though it’s officially designated as something, it still feels more like an empty lot than a park; a few murals overlook it from the sides of buildings like guardian angels; I ended up there several times at night when I lived here, at night and sometimes with alcohol, and something seemed more than real about it.

There’s enough of a path in the snow that its no trouble to make the trip, send them on to the guy who’s reading it—for reference. Also for my own satisfaction, because I always like seeing the Big Empty Lot—one of my earliest memories of Montreal (the night I met Shawn, Sean & Anae), includes it, and one of my last memories (that short story I mentioned), both involve it. In the years when I was in proper exile, it was one of the places I dreamed of standing in again, desolate as it is. So, there I was; pictures: snap snap snap.

So much for not trudging through the snow. But I was happy to do it up here. I start back and remember the sound of the raucous dancing circle of Hasids that I could hear from behind a higher fence, the last time I passed here in the heat of last May. Another world now under a layer white and sub-freezing temperatures. But this is Montreal, and the city is not hibernating. Those who refuse to come here in December are missing out.

I went to Drawn & Quarterly next. And I spent too much money there. Books do have this effect on me: I will always spend too much money on them. It’s an independent bookstore, and therefore a good cause. … English bookstores in this city seem to be dropping like flies.

I got a book for myself, a gift for Grandpa and a gift for Mark. I almost bought an 900-page tome by Ogla Tokarczuk, the Polish Nobel laureate, but I am sane and so therefore left it. … well, okay—I asked them to put in on hold for two hours while I thought about it. (Mark and I had talked about reading it together last summer, you see, and I’m thinking that maybe that could be my excuse, that maybe it’s a sign and we could do that instead of Ben Okri. Also I just want the book. It’s silly to buy it here and I know I probably won’t, but I can’t let go of the idea so easily. I buy more than a read, perhaps I am an addict or a hoarder of a kind—I read what Umberto Eco wrote and so call it an anti-library.)

From there I went down, I think it was Esplanade, past the Mile End houses I so love, past the Hasids with the plastic bags wrapped around the black fur-lined hats, down here to where I now sit. The place bustles like a good cafe should, as I sip my tea and let my writing slow down. I am waiting for Mark to respond about reading the book together, and possibly give me the excuse to buy it.

…

It is now the 7th, as of this sentence. Three days have passed, and too much was going on during those days to write very much. (Except for all that stuff I filled in for the 3rd while I was sitting in Bar Suzanne). I am in Matvey’s AirBnb and he has just woken up. He says the way I’ve wrapped my suitcase is very slavic. He needs to get woken up a little, so I have a little more time to write.

On the day this entry is supposed to be about—

after leaving Olimplico, I went down towards Fairmount to have a light lunch at Wilensky’s. More lovely houses along another lovely side street.

Wilensky’s is another stop I always make while I’m here. I always eat there and always bring a bunch more sandwiches home.

But no dice, today—it’s closed on Mondays. Oh well. That only means I have to come back one more time. I hadn’t planned to come to Mile End more than once, but why not? It’s not far. For today, I go to that take-out gnocchi place a couple doors down instead, because I’d always wanted to try that spot too—I used to pass by that little window coming back with bags of groceries, if I went to PA, but I never wanted to stop there while I was lugging groceries. Just now, before I approached Wilensky’s and saw that it was closed, I thought to myself that it was a shame I’d never been there. Well: things do work out.

I get the gnocchi in a cliche little take-out box and I eat it with a wooden fork as I make a circuit around the block. It’s delicious. Once that meal is gone, I stop at Fairmount Bagel and got my twelve bagels to bring back.

There’s a lot of food on this street that I want to take home with me. Fairmount is a particularly delicious street in a city that is also delicious as a whole.

From there, I walked back up towards Bernard and Drawn & Quarterly—because I if I walked back up to Bernard to catch the bus, I’d have more time to think about the book I already knew I wasn’t going to go back and buy. Plus, it’s nice walking past the houses here. I love Mile End houses: I used to dream of living in one of those houses. I still do, although it’s less likely to happen. I don’t even go in the bookstore—and then it’s an easy bus ride, and I’m back. I have a couple hours at the apartment before I go out again.

That evening’s the QWF (Quebec Writer’s Federation: I was a member for, like, six months) schmoozer. On Pine (des Pins), just a fifteen minutes’ walk from where I was staying. A schmoozer: I don’t know yet what to expect from that. A place to meet people, I gather, stand around with drinks and such, chat, although I also know there’s a more formal competent, a part where people will stand and pitch their project to the room for one minute per person. I applied for that, but was told I did not qualify for it because I do not live in Quebec—this makes sense to me.

It’s another something that Willow has invited me to; another thing I am eternally grateful for, because it allows me to exist as a writer. I don’t do much existing-as-a-writer. It’s also the last writer’s event of my week, and I’m aware the nature of my being here will change once I’ve walked out of it … This is fine, because I’m out of energy vis-a-vis anything to do with writing and/or self-promotion. I was too exhausted to even hand out cards or mention I had copies of my book with me last night at the poetry night—which was for the best, I thought, because it would not have been an appropriate setting anyway. I am ready for this phase of my trip to end.

Part of me wishes I hadn’t chosen to stay all the way to Thursday, and was leaving tomorrow (Tuesday) instead. I am tired. But I know why I wanted the extra two days. And I know I’ll be glad I’ve stayed.

I work on another chapter of the novella, which I really badly want to get done before I get back to Vancouver and get thrown back into work. (It’s odd to know what to do with tenses; you’ll notice they shift about. Am I acknowledging that I’m writing about a past or am I pretending that it’s a present?) Then I still have a little time after finishing that and so, before heading straight to the schmoozer, I decide to have a cup of coffee at one of the cafes nearby on Rachel—I have a couple marked on my “want to go” list and so, since I’m so close, why not? I have some time, and I feel like a caffeine pick me up. And I like cafes, I really do: I’ll probably get some writing done there. Not the novella, because a chapter a day is more than plenty: some of this, or a poem. Yes, a lot of writing, but I like writing.

I leave the place, walk down Rachel a bit and then stop in the Cafe Neve. They tell me it’s just closing but that’s fine, I have somewhere to be at the exact time they close. I get a little cappuccino; I sit down. While I’m sipping that I write out a really nice poem. I don’t want to linger, so when I’m done that, I finish my coffee and then am off.

The schmoozer is in what I think is the old Hotel-Dieu at Parc and Pine: a big, old building whose history or present I have only the vaguest notion of. (The texture of this work does change with a few days in between; I’d have rather been writing it while it was fresh. But so it goes—have this composite). It’s a fairly big complex, and none of it looks from the outside like the kind of place a literary schmoozer would be. So I get a bit lost, doubling back a couple times thinking I had to have missed the address. I text Willow and she’s not there yet so can’t help, but I connect with someone else who is lost for the same reason—Tong, a concert pianist, I find out later once I’m inside—and we end up wandering back and forth checking doors as a pair for a bit. It’s a little nicer not being alone. We first came to the wrong conclusion and went up through the snow to ornate double doors up some stone steps—out of hubris possibly because we wanted the event to be important enough to merit such doors—but it was very dark and closed, and no footprints in the snow got all the way there. We turned around—and eventually found the right place: some modern automatic doors that could not be seen from the street. Warm. More expected. We go inside.

I will probably have to take a break from writing: Matvey is up and pouring himself a morning champagne, and I am not really awake enough to do this well.

From the airplane back to Vancouver, now—

The event was roughly as I described above. I left my winter wear on a wrack, walked into an open room where a few people had already arrived and were eating cheeses off paper plates and sipping soda from cans. I slip in pretty easily, and have a few good conversations. Andre, a local script writer who has never done much creative, but is interested; John Wickham, a formalist poet from Mission who works for the QWF now; Mary Thaler, who I’d actually met before at expozine (she was the one from Quebec City) and bought a book from—I spend the most time with these three, on and off, back and forth. Willow shows up too, of course, a little bit late. Fashionably. I bounce around people as much as possible, making friends and connections. The one minute pitches occur, and they’re interesting. Then a bingo game commences, with prizes donated by those present (my own book is there). The bingo game is set up in such a way that it encourages us to mingle even more. When I fill a line of my bingo card (which everyone is expected to do, eventually), I exchange it for Mary’s Beowulf-ish book, which is what she talked about in her pitch and which I am looking forward to reading. I did take medieval studies as my minor, after all.

Things wind down from there—roughly a natural place for it to do so. I left the event with Willow, who said she could recommend me a place to have dinner—there isn’t enough in the apartment to make a proper meal from, so I’m basically obliged to eat out, not that I’m complaining. Willow, or rather a large clump of us who leave at the same time and then go out separate ways out the door. I follow Willow and one or two others along Pine in the direction of St-Laurent.

I slip and fall on the ice on Pine, breaking my good track record—I somehow haven’t fallen before this, even though my shoes are not meant for snow and have zero traction. We get to chat a bit, about writing and editing and etc. She jokes that I keep the lights on in her apartment, I write so much and I do send it all to her. I saw she does good work, I appreciate it. She’s working on a poetry book for me right now, Motion Blur, and then I have more. I’m unsure how it comes off talking about this—but I suppose we’re writers coming from an evening for writers.

She drops me off at a Venezuelan sandwich restaurant, bit of a hole in the wall, where I get an overstuffed apera and a malt beverage, sit in the back next to a TV playing Bob Ross while Biggie Smalls blasts over the speaker. The food is good, more than filling… but the night doesn’t feel properly over. Because, you see, I wanted to sit down and get writing done over dinner, and this was not the place for it. So I still want that, and maybe a drink or two, before heading back.

I stop off at Bar Suzanne. Making up for the night before, when I hadn’t wanted to walk that far after finding Big in Japan closed. And I find it it almost deserted—the opposite of last time, but I guess this is Monday night. Even in Montreal, Monday night is Monday night.

I decide to get a table on the other side of the place from where I’d sat at the bar the first time I’d been there. I finished yesterday’s entry at that table, while sipping at couple of good cocktails (I want to get through their entire specialty cocktail list before I go), and I chatted with a couple people on my dying phone.

Then I do go back. Satisfied, a little drunk. I have a shower and settle in to watch Tokyo Drifter. Fall asleep around one, praying that my cough doesn’t relapse.