It was a silent Saturday morning. Coffee that takes an hour to drink, on the balcony, wondering if it would be worth driving to the Laurentians in the afternoon, just to be surrounded by forest. Of course, you will tell me that the forests are always worthwhile. I agree. But the thing is, it wasn’t ugly or beautiful outside, so we had to kick our ass a little to go and put some gas in the tank, and accept that we’d have to come back early. It’s made expensive, chalet rentals. And they’re still all praised anyway, even the ugliest ones. It was a lot of floats the same day to say hello to the trees…
Drinking my coffee, I watched the stories on Instagram. It was there that I saw that my friend Marie-Pierre, at the same time and about thirty streets from our house, was having her coffee in the courtyard of her new house. A courtyard which, the day before, was nothing but a pile of old earth that had survived the winter. And there suddenly: peat and planks in every corner, guys with hammers hanging on jeans, flowers to plant. Marie-Pierre and her boyfriend had just moved in there, their first house of their own, where everything possible was to be imagined and built.
– Wow, Marie, who are they?
— Stephan’s friends. They arrived early to help build a shed. We are also going to try to make a kind of bar with the leftover planks for the yard!
– Singles?
(Excuse her, we’ve been locked up for a long time.)
— Hahaha. Come on. I’m going to buy something to make hot dogs, I’ll be back in an hour max.
— […]
– Faque … are you coming?
– OK, but you do not tell them what I said, han? Above all, I don’t want to come across as obsessed. 😉
— Well no. you are bored of your boyfriendyou don’t have your children today, you come to see his court before going to the north. That’s it.
– You are perfect.
— (You’re obsessed.) xxxxx
Not even noon and now I was eating hot dogs. And they were, that day, the best hot dogs of my life. The guys were working hard and they were in their project bubble. So Marie-Pierre had decided that from now on she would know how to use the barbecue. Just that, I found that hot. Hear me here. I know very well that a woman is capable of barbeqing. But me, the older I get, the more I’m afraid of the propane tank. She put the veggie buns and sausages on the grill; I took care of putting all the toppings on the picnic table: relish, mustard, ketchup, mayo, pickles, cheese, tomatoes, spinach.
“Crisse, will it still taste like sausage with all that?”
– It’s because you don’t have to put everything…
I put it all in, and they were the best hot dogs of my life. (My son, who loves hot dogs, no sausage, just mustard bread, would probably find that disgusting, but that’s another subject.)
In this courtyard which smelled of smoke, it also smelled of the beginnings of renewal.
It smelled of buddies-of-guys-from-elementary-grade who build a shed for two days, never asking for anything in return.
It smelled like the friend who is always there to kick ass. The friend who invites me to her place that I have a boyfriend or not, whether I am with the children or not, and whether I can stay for five hours or fifteen minutes.
A veggie hot dog a hundred times better than IKEA’s, you have to do it.
That Saturday, I took the road to see the trees, telling myself that there are friends who smell really good. A smell even stronger than an entire forest after the rain. And it is to these people that I wanted to pay tribute (even those I don’t know): those who say OK, I’m coming to help you, and the others who say come on .