Snow, peanut butter and Thanksgiving

I’ve been saying to a lot of people lately that I feel pretty scatterbrained; and it’s partially true. I really have no idea where to put my thoughts at the moment.

You see, it happens that I often find myself in the predicament of being caught in somewhere between now and later (sometimes referred to as the present and future).

I’ll give you an example, any given hour I go between thinking about: the papers I have due that accrue at an inhuman rate, grad schools, how quickly the year is passing checking facebook (before the news), looking at maps on Google maps, playing around with translating all of this in French or Italian, and generally pondering about people I miss/want to see/have to write to/want to call…not to mention the assorted daily comings and goings of eating, going to class, shopping (if need be…for stuff like salt now that I think about it for our suicide steps that have become somewhat icy and convex since the first snow fall), and… if everything is going right, maybe a drink later on in the evening.

Coffee deserves an honourable mention and can be interspersed with or in between any of the above mentioned thoughts and actions. I drink it like most people drink water.

Needless to say, mentally I’m anywhere but where I am physically…sometimes I wish I could just STOP thinking.

I guess this is good place to start stopping?

Just to briefly sidetrack for a moment, I literally just received notice that my transfer credits from Bologna finally went through; it’s done. 13 credits from McGill (which is considerably more than I expected considering it was the exchange that wasn’t supposed to happen…well at least the way it did). Wow. It worked?

So anyway, I asked a friend today if it was rational to make a life decision based on my odd attachment to snow and peanut butter (yes, I am going to talk about peanut butter again). Let me explain.

Lately I have been wrestling with the idea of going to grad school in Europe; although this may not be my only opportunity to go live in Europe for awhile, studying urban planning there seems like a pretty good continuation of a dream that has now been four years in the making (since I unsuccessfully announced to my parents that I wanted to go to university in Europe…when I was 17) Yeah…you imagined pretty correctly their response.

So… now seems like the time right; graduating, finding a grad school program, picking up and going… it all seems so simple. Maybe it is just too simple.

Hold on…let’s just back up for a sec.

You see, this whole vision was all well and good until I looked at the weather forecast the other day; 15-20 cm of snow.

For some reason, I have an fond and slightly odd attachment to winter weather and specifically snow…and I still can’t quite grasp why. In short, I get giddy…really giddy. I was thinking that maybe it was because I always associate it with snow days and freedom from school back home, and up here, probably some of the greatest times of my life were spent in sub zero temperatures, but there’s something more. It’s so ephemeral, so calming. I love slapping on a audaciously heavy pair of LL Bean boots and just motoring off through the slush and everything else winter has to offer. Just. Because. I. Can. I’m convinced, on top of all of this, Montreal is a city meant to look good in the winter.

It really feels magical but like I said, I can’t really put my finger on it. One thing is for sure, I’ve been running around like a maniac these past couple days taking photos and spending significant amounts of time procrastinating while looking out the window.

And so help me God, if global warming begins to affect Montreal winters, I may have to pick up and move off to Chibougamau in northern Québec.

Bref, this is a non-negotiable. I need winter; as crazy as it sounds, I need snow.

This brings me to peanut butter…now, if you’ve been following this blog, you know while I was in Italy my parents spent about 25$ American shipping some Skippy off to their poor son who was living it up in Europe’s culinary capital, Bologna.

My friend really said it right, it’s not the peanut so much as it’s symbolic value: the comfort of being home. Peanut butter is what the being in the fetal position, for me at least, would taste like.

All the comfort of home packed into one little jar, how could you go wrong.

Being cut off from it in Europe was pretty tragic for me and let’s just say I made a habit of frequenting the first supermarket establishment I found that sold it, because this was clearly an indicator of a guy who had everything…even though his prices were a little high.

Bref, another non-negotiable.

Finally, American Thanksgiving. All my family was home over Thanksgiving, and in hein sight, I probably should’ve been there too. For all those non-Americans in the audience, Thanksgiving in the States is really so much more than carving a turkey. Leaving behind the discussion of food (which I seem to always come back to…curious, eh?) Thanksgiving is a time to be around the people you love.

Family’s important, ‘nuff said.

I find it kind of ironic that I was taking an institutional French test on the very same day that we celebrate the values of family, love and just generally enjoying time together, but whatever, c’est la vie.

I do have to say though, celebrating up here with close friends, with a box of pizza, some beer and watching a football game was really quite amazing as well. I guess it’s the spirit of the holiday that gets me more than the food that comes with it.

Special people, spending time together; that’s what counts in the end. My Thanksgiving was like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Oh, by the way, on that note, it’s officially the start of the holiday season, you are now allowed to discuss Christmas.

My point is, I guess my pendulum has swung, or rather, I’m rediscovering why I fell in love with Montreal, why there was really no other option in my mind once I got accepted to McGill.

It really fits like a glove.

French and English. Bureaucracy in a timely manner. Tams Tams in the summer and an audaciously brutal but beautiful winter. French cheese next to peanut butter at the supermarket. Canadian AND American Thanksgiving.

Is it the compromise that I’ve been looking for all along? Is this place me?