Il Parle Anglais, Snowman.

The past four months have been an exercise in my own ability to withstand heartbreak. I have never felt more romanced in my life, and I don't think I've ever used the word 'romance' as much as I have in this time.

I want to say that living in Montreal has been a wonderful experience, but I'm unsure of whether or not I really lived here. I never changed my phone number, and although my bed has been here for the past 4 months, my heart has been elsewhere. I spent November, December and the first part of January living out of a suitcase. I actually spent 16 consecutive days without sleeping in my own bed. Was Montreal ever really home?

It was snowing today. It's still snowing now.

I decided to take a walk shortly after 3h (that's 3am, to everyone outside of Quebec). As soon as I stepped outside I knew that my feet were going to get wet. I hadn't the faintest notion that a late-night walk up St-Laurent would conjure up memories that are so recent they shouldn't have held such nostalgia.

As memories filled my head, slush filled up my shoes, making my thoughts tangible. Making them real.

I walked farther than I had planned, letting myself fall in to a bit of a trance, induced by the romance that swells the air in this fair city. I watched as cabs drove by, not slowing down to see if I could be a fare. They knew that I was walking with a purpose.

But was I, really? I left my apartment, restless, in search of a hot chocolate and some cheese to snack on. What I found was an urge to see if the bottle that had been thrown out the window at that raucous, tequila-fueled party was still on the sidewalk; A desire to allow the slush to penetrate my shoes and soak right through my socks, to chill me to the bone, to let me re-live a moment. A moment that was nothing more than a hiccough.

And after I had walked farther than I had intended to, but not as far as I wanted to, I turned around and walked against the one-way traffic.

I saw him again.
He spoke English.

If the snow outside were the sticky kind, I would build a snowman. For there is no greater company than a man that you've built to your own specifications, whose expiration date is unpredictable, but impending. The death of a snowman is a death that you are always prepared for.

I'm not sure if it's poetic, ironic, or just pathetic that I see great beauty and sadness in that I am leaving the most romantic place I've ever been at the same time that all the bonhomme-de-neiges are melting.