Since the city is less than an
hour from the Vermont border, we’ve been to Montreal many times, but never for our
anniversary. So on this particular trip I was often reminded of moments from our
first visit back 1988. In some ways, you could call it our first date.
Let me back up. Chris and I met that year at the August
wedding of my college roommate Sonja and his grad school roommate Craige. Since
we were both in the wedding party, we spent a fair amount of time together that
weekend. I discovered he was fun to dance with, we had similar taste in books,
and he made me laugh. As the weekend came to a close, I wanted to get to know
him better but, at the same time, we were both in the process of moving—I was
relocating to the Boston area from Virginia and Chris was moving from
Minneapolis to Burlington. We talked about getting together in our new locales
and exchanged contact information, but I admit I was skeptical about whether I
would hear from him again.
A couple weeks later, as I was unpacking boxes in my new
apartment, I received a delivery of flowers. They were gorgeous lavender
roses—with no card. I assumed they were from someone I had been involved with
in Virginia, but I knew that relationship was going nowhere. Then the mail
arrived, and with it a small package containing a cassette tape (remember
those?). There was a song on each side, and one of them was Frank Sinatra’s Moonlight in Vermont. This got my attention and made me rethink the roses. When we spoke on
the phone, Chris invited me up to Vermont for Labor Day weekend, a couple days
away.
It’s important to note that driving three hours to spend a
weekend with someone I barely knew was completely out of character for me. Plus
I had been in a long distance relationship before and wasn’t looking to jump
into one again. Not to mention, I was still unpacking and due to start my new
job the Tuesday after Labor Day. But I went.
When I pulled up outside Chris’s building that Friday
evening, I could hear Dire Straits’ Expresso Love drifting out of the second
floor window. I remember that moment vividly, pausing to listen to a few bars
of that song and feeling like my life was about to change. For me, like many
people, music has a way of crystallizing a moment in time, fixing it in memory.
Years later a song can play on the radio or in a shop and instantly transport me
back to that moment. Food has a way of doing this also.
Not all of Chris’s furniture had arrived yet from Minnesota,
but he did have some of the more crucial items, including his stereo. He also
had a bottle of champagne at the ready. Eventually we went out for something to
eat, pizza at Ken’s, which is still there. Sometimes when I walk past this pizzeria/pub
now and smell the pizzas baking, I’m brought back to a moment when we sat at
one of the outdoor tables and I thought, I could drive back tomorrow morning
and start my life in Massachusetts. Or I could stay and there would be no
turning back. For some reason it felt like there was nothing in between.
I stayed, of course, and on Sunday Chris suggested we drive up
to Montreal for dinner. This sounded like a good idea, and mostly it was. A
warm summer rain fell much of the afternoon, so after we tired of wandering
around the city, exploring the Old Town and Latin Quarter, we found a restaurant.
I don’t remember what I ate, in part because I wasn’t focusing on my meal, but I
do remember sitting at that table across from Chris in the rustic coziness of
the dining room. When the time came to pay the bill, though, he realized he’d
been pickpocketed. Not a problem, I covered it. Fortunately this was prior to
the strict border controls that would now prevent him from returning to the US
without an official ID. On the way home we somehow breezed through the border, but
ended up lost in upstate New York and got home around 1 am.
To the surprise of some, 14 months later we got engaged, and
14 months after that I had moved to Vermont and we were married.
At our
wedding, our first song was the one that was on the second side of the
cassette, one we had danced to at Craige and Sonja’s wedding—Can’t Help Falling in Love. Now here we are, 24 years later, with two daughters who are not far
from the age I was when Chris and I first met.
On this recent visit to Montreal, instead of warm summer
rain, we walked around in the bracing cold.
Despite the biting wind, though,
the city’s old world architecture and cosmopolitan vibe still charm.
The
restaurant we went to that first weekend is still there, although we’ve never
been back. We’ve discovered other favorites over the years with excellent food.
For lunch—Restaurant l’Express, a Parisian-style bistro where they make a classic
Salade de Chèvre Chaud, a salad of lightly dressed mesclun with warmed goat
cheese on toasts,
and Pot au Feu, a beef stew complete with marrowbone.
For dinner we went to Au Petit Extra, which has one of the
best chalkboard menus I’ve ever seen.
My Rabbit Braised in Mustard Sauce was exquis,
and Chris relished his Steak Frites.
We talked about that first weekend together and not
surprisingly remembered some of the moments differently. Was Expresso Love
still playing when Chris opened the door or had the song changed to Hand in Hand? Did we drink the champagne before or after we went out for pizza? We’ve
now shared thousands of moments since those early ones—mostly happy, some
mundane. Some where we were lost again on a dark road, and some we breezed
through under questionable circumstances. Our taste in books has diverged a bit since the late ‘80s, but he’s
still fun to dance with and he still makes me laugh. And even after all these
years I want to know more about him.
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