I’m quiet these days. I don’t feel as though I have many things to share. I read and think, write my thoughts in a journal, then balance that with exercise (more on that below) and social events when I can arrange them. Last evening, I joined two new acquaintances at an organised storytelling event. As in, the six stories were prepared, it wasn’t open mic.

To be honest, I found the hubbub staggering after possibly too much solitude, but other than the overwhelm of the crowd, and my being ill at ease at the beginning and then the interval, the storytelling itself was great. Funny, poignant, and all tied to “a song that changed my life”, the theme of the event. 

I spent the awkward break sitting alone, wondering if I had a song that changed my world, and decided that I didn’t. What I do have is music that marks specific moments of my life. Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, for instance, takes me to uncomfortable slow dances when I was twelve or so. A few years later, I remember talking to Robert, a tartan-trousered, safety-pin-pierced punk rocker about the Sex Pistols and the meaning of life while lying on the dewy grass in Mount Pleasant cemetery. 

University is Chaka Khan (thanks, Gaby) and Cat Stevens. A decade or so on, it is The Long Black Veil by the Chieftains, which I sang to my colicky newborns (yes, all three) in the wee hours as I walked circles through the kitchen, living room and dining room up in the mountains of Costa Rica. The lights of the city shining below, my exhaustion almost unfathomable now. And then there’s The Rose, by Bette Midler, which I think of as my divorce song. 

The evening was well worth it for the storytelling, and the thinking it provoked. Do I have a story that will get me up on stage one of these months?

I’ve taken up yoga again. “Finally,” some of you will say, while others might roll their eyes. Roll away, I say. I think I might be on to something. 

Modo Yoga, a welcoming studio around the corner filled with frighteningly-friendly millennials, a comfortable sofa area complete with an equally friendly dog, and a space that fits 40 people, is where I am doing Hot Yoga.

I imagined a room at sauna temperature, complete with steam, slippery mats and sweat everywhere as we flung ourselves through the postures. I mean, we do sweat. My t-shirt sticks to me not long after the second downward dog, but it isn’t unbearable. And while it’s a little fast for this aging body, I feel I manage to “flow” from pose to pose with reasonable grace. I don’t necessarily love it, but I love having done it. And my body is grateful.

Montreal is flirting with me, and I kind of like it. Last autumn was the showiest display of gorgeous leaf colours that people had seen in years. And now, it appears that spring is actually lingering rather than barrelling towards the high temperatures and higher humidity of summer. It was 5 degrees when I woke this morning, but the homes are insulated here, with double-glazed windows and doors that seal properly against the cold, unlike my gorgeous yet draughty home by the chilly Thames. By noon, it was 20 and I was over-heating when out walking a friend’s dog.

Will winter here ever tempt me? I am playing with the idea of a couple of weeks in the snow at the end of January, when I return from Australia with my mum. Hang on (my eyebrows lifting), that means going from 30 degrees to potentially -30 degrees. Scrap that idea, the 280 km Camino in Costa Rica that reaches more than 7,000 feet of altitude is somehow more appealing.

What else have I been doing? I went for a bike ride with Dori last week and we did 55 kms, a chunk of it along a lovely 16-km spit of land in the mighty St. Laurence river. The spit is so narrow that from the car-less road that runs the length of it we could see water on both sides, through the leafing-out trees with swooping birds and the occasional ground hog. How do these creatures end up so far from anywhere? I suppose they are just large rodents. 

As we rode, we ate a number of bugs - it’s the season for that - and by the end, my shoulders, butt and feet were complaining. But it was an excellent start to the season. When I hit London next month one of the first things I’ll do is haul my two bikes out of storage so that I have both easy transport and available exercise. 

Which reminds me – less than three weeks left here in Montreal. Best to get out and enjoy the city.

I watched a hockey game last night. No, not the English kind with curved…, oh, hang on. I already wrote that post. But I did watch a hockey game last night. I sat with friends on their sofa, enjoying the action on the large-screen tv, my feet up, chicken wings with blue cheese dip to eat and a beer in my hand. There was even a dog at my feet. In other words, a perfect evening with excellent hockey, except that the Leafs lost. This will likely be my last mention of hockey. 🏒😞 

I received a lot of positive feedback from my last post, and I do think that it flowed well, so I admit to feeling some pressure to spin out another well-written free-flowing chapter of my life here in Montreal. But I’m going to turn my back on that need for affirmation from others, and just do the best I can to express some of the thoughts and ideas spinning around my head.

Warning: it’s messy in there.

I feel an urge to write about the weather, which must be a legacy from all those years in the UK.  But it is so extraordinarily different here than London, even though they’re both temperate climates. This time last week we were in the throes of a miserable, cool, four-day inundation of steady rain. I wanted the chance to moan, but then the sun came out on Friday and summer arrived. 

Just like that, the mountain, which only a week ago was a large beige lump with a spiky crewcut of bare trees, became cloaked in a fuzz of green. Leaves unfurled, magnolias popped and people put on shorts and t-shirts. 

Montreal: 6th of April after an ice storm (above) vs 6th of May (below)

This post, in which I was going to weave together the ideas of rebirth and regrowth with the theme of a damp and fecund springtime, doesn’t work so well now that it’s 20 degrees and sunny. So while I’m tempted to skip over writing about the frustration I felt when I tried to apply that burgeoning growth rhetoric to myself, I won't. I am immersed in it. I have to not only acknowledge but embrace this messy middle of a long drawn-out transition. It doesn’t matter when it began and it’s irrelevant to focus on the end. Yeah, I got divorced; happens to a lot of people. And my girls are so far-flung they’re like destination children around which I can plan a whole holiday, but wow! it’s exciting to see what they’re doing. Now it’s time to pull on the threads of curiosity to see what comes next for me.

Why am I finding it so hard?

Don’t get me wrong. I do not expect sympathy in any way; I am fortunate to have the opportunity, the time, the health and the bank balance to follow an inquisitive path. But uncertainty has never been a comfortable bedfellow for me. I’m more goal-oriented. Give me a finish line and I cruise.

Introspective personal development, however, is far less measurable. 

I’ve been so focused on the where, as in, do I want to return to London to live? Is the draw I feel to Canada enough to settle here? And, looking around Montreal, is this it? The Plateau has great energy and character but it’s crowded with millennials and older people who have lived here their whole lives. Nothing wrong with that, but is this my community? 

Which is why I have to stop thinking of the where and to consider instead the what, maybe the how, because I could make it work here if I had purpose. Of course I could. And it might be a great combination with Costa Rica or Mexico as the winter abode.

I need to shift my mindset in order to consider the journey rather than the destination, to take notice of what is confirming my fixed beliefs, both personal and societal, and then toss out those that are holding me back.

I wish it was as easy as putting out the recycling.

It’s a little uncomfortable where I’m sitting but I’m okay with that. Discomfort brings change. As Justine put in the note she gave me to read on the plane last year, it would have been easy to stay put in my exquisite house on the Thames, to enjoy the neighbours, my friends, do more volunteer work, take classes. But it didn’t feel right. I was twitchy.

Change is hard, it takes focused work. And what I’m learning is that it’s more about asking the right questions than finding answers.  

So I'll leave you with a question: What feeds your vitality?

PS - here's a photo of me with Mads at her Rush University commencement ceremony last weekend. I'm so proud of her 💚