The more my love of the countryside grows, the more I think back to an interview I did with Mara Tremblay about ten years ago. We talked about music, her origins, and the small town on the Côte-Nord where she was born, Hauterive. Merged with Baie-Comeau in 1982, Hauterive is now the name of the folk-country project that the cowgirl has created with her long-time friend Catherine Durand.
A very long introduction to share with you a precise image that has always remained with me from this interview.
Mara had confided that when she returned to Montreal after spending time in the countryside, just seeing the city in the distance again, while driving over the bridge, gave her the blues.
As I wrote these words, in my cozy first apartment in Montreal, I remember finding it intense.
From a personal point of view, I was still quite innocent.
And that was when you could still get, if you were lucky, a six-and-a-half-room haven for $650.
Quebec-Montreal
Last week, I left Île d’Orléans to pick up my children in the city and bring them back here to experience this sweetness with me. For the first time, I took the Quebec-Montreal train rather than driving, so I didn’t cross the bridge that makes the city appear in the distance.
Disembark at the central station, light feet and small suitcase on wheels in hand. But it was a few steps further, at the doors that connect the station to the metro, that I really arrived.
Before I could reach home, I first had to go through what I would have liked to call a simple bad dream.
The reality is that I saw so much human misery in less than a fraction of a second that I had to go outside to avoid suffocating.
Not because I had never seen suffering in my life, but because after listening to the birds singing for a week, I found the shock very great.
Too big.
Movement as instinct
I started walking, movement often being what makes me feel safe. Did I really feel safe?
Some travel memories resurfaced.
Marseille train station, nightfall, 17 years old, alone with no accommodation booked. So scared that she had to call her mother from a public phone.
Then, San Francisco. My travel partner and I had booked a beautiful hotel located near several tourist areas. What we understood when we got off the bus was that it also bordered Tenderloin (Fentanyl-Ville for short).
I had a cold snap and said, “Wait, I’ll get a jacket from my suitcase.” As soon as the suitcase was unzipped, about ten people in survival situations walked toward us, or toward the suitcase, I never really knew. However, I understood that it was better to leave this place as quickly as possible.
My city is in pain
But last week, as I left the city centre with my rolling suitcase, I was not abroad.
I was at home. And I felt pain for my city, because its inhabitants are hurting.
How could I, as a teenager, leave the Parc cinema after midnight in complete ecstasy?
On both sides of Parc Avenue, every three meters, homeless people were creating shelters for themselves. In some corners, voices were raised, the tension was palpable.
I was so lost on the crowded sidewalks that I started walking right in the middle of the street. No cars were passing anyway.
A homeless person approached me and asked: “ What are you looking for ? Can I help you ? »
The whole of society should be asking him the same questions.
Near Mount Royal, further up the avenue, silence had returned. But all the tents set up here and there struck me just as much.
On the importance of walking
If when I arrived in Montreal I had thought of Mara’s words, it was then of the artist Thomas Hellman that I thought. He and I had been invited to a round table on the road trip at ICI Première.
Although the segment was titled “How to Make Your Road Trip a Success,” Thomas, eloquent and surprising as usual, had talked about the book A walkby Henry David Thoreau, praising walking as a true road trip interior.
In the forest, for example, walking will lead you to contemplation.
In Montreal, on the paths you have often taken, she will reveal to you the extent of what you thought you knew.