Eighty-degree days have brought summer nights. Slow-moving fireflies appear and reappear over pale moonlit peonies and wild roses in our Vermont garden; the air is damp and still and scented with cut grass, or hay if you venture beyond the edges of the village.
On our last night in Montreal this week we met friends for a picnic at Lac aux Castors - Beaver Lake - on the far side of Parc Mont Royal. Schools of overgrown goldfish shimmered under the surface as we walked around the man-made lake. Groups of Hasidic children - the girls in long dresses, the boys in white shirts and black suits, wearing yarmulkes and long sidelocks - played not far from their mothers. We went to the far side, on the sloping lawn, and sat under a tree waiting for our friends, while an Asian man and his child flew a big kite and a group of Rastafarians set up a picnic on a nearby table. A middle-aged man rode up on his bicycle, sat on the grass, and smoked a large joint; a cop rode by on his own bicycle, paying no attention at all. Couples read, ate, walked through the trees, slept in each other's arms. Our friends arrived and we shared a picnic of cheese, bread, wine, stuffed grape leaves, kibbeh, strawberries.The sun set; the man with the bicycle watched it through outstretched fingers, held in front of his eyes. We tossed a frisbee, talked, drank the remaining wine.
Music wafted from the pavilion on the other side of the lake, and we could see a large group of people gathering on the terrace outside. "It's folk dancing," we finally decided, and since we all needed to go home in that direction, we walked around the lake again and stopped to watch the dancers, perhaps fifty in all, arranged in a circle, holding hands. In the center was the teacher, a diminutive French woman in a white blouse and full, knee-length, dark blue skirt; she wore white ankle socks and what looked like tap shoes, with low heels and a strap across the instep. Diana and watched for one dance, and then got up and joined the circle. I concentrated hard, trying to understand the instructions and imitate the teacher's movements. It had seemed to me, as I listened, that the group was mostly Jewish, and much of the music Israeli, but the dance we were learning then was French. The dancers joined hands and we moved to the right, letting go, turning backwards, rejoining, then putting out hands on each others' shoulders and making steps forward and back, dipping down on one leg. Again and again we began, following her words, and then the music. "Un; deux; vit-vit-vit," she intoned, smiling, "avance; l'arrière; maintenant à gauche..." The dance ended; we let go; it was time to leave. The music was still playing as we made our way to the car.
--
Last night, on a hilltop in Vermont, we had dinner with an old friend. There had been deer in the meadow when we drove up, and they had watched us, only their alert ears visible above the tall grass. We had drinks outside, until the black flies drove us in, and then ate cold potato-leek soup and curried chicken, bread, salad. I cut up fresh peaches and strawberries for dessert, and we went into the living room with the bookshelves full of music and the old, black Steinway, and talked about old times and people, and then watched a DVD of our friend's music - a violin concerto and a piano concerto - being performed earlier this year in Moscow. On previous visits, over the past year and a half, he had played me parts of the concerti from the unfinished scores; it was wonderful to see and hear the music played by virtuoso performers, and watch our friend come onto the stage at the Rachmininoff Recital Hall, beaming.
We walked to our car across the black back lawn, under the trees, and emerged beneath a sky ablaze with stars. Heat lightening pulsed along the horizon; the only sounds those of late-night birds and insects. We leaned against the car and silently gazed overhead; fireflies danced in the bushes, accompanying the memories slipping back into place, like pages of a just-studied picture-book now being turned carefully from the back to the front before being replaced on the shelf. "Some things last much longer than you, and some much less," the night seemed to say. "So be here, now."
Your first description reminds me very much of Ottawa (I come from Gatineau, the French "benlieu" of Ottawa). You should go there next year, during the Tulip festival (4 to 21 of May), you'll very much enjoy it, I'm sure. Tons of flowers, the spring warmth and the Rideau canal, a wonderful place to bike, run, walk or picnic. It's only two hours of Montreal, perfect for a weekend escapade ;)
Or you can go in the winter, to skate on the canal. It's a lot of fun to skate on a very long skateway (7.8km -> http://www.canadascapital.gc.ca/data/2/rec_docs/1942_skateway_map.pdf), while seeing Ottawa's downtown.
Now who the last two posts, I clearly look like a travel agent ;) But you know how it is, I can't help it, I want to share what I enjoy and love ;p
Posted by: Jean-Olivier | June 16, 2007 at 07:31 PM
Merci, Jean-Olivier! I appreciate your recommendation about Ottawa. I knew about the skating on the Rideau canal, but not about the Tulip festival - it sounds wonderful and like something we'd really love.
Posted by: beth | June 16, 2007 at 07:48 PM
(o)
Posted by: dale | June 17, 2007 at 03:55 AM
That was a lovely.
"Some things last much longer than you, and some much less," the night seemed to say. "So be here, now."
I will carry that thought with me through my day
Thank You
Posted by: Mouse | June 18, 2007 at 03:35 AM
You have the best of both worlds - in Montreal and Vermont. Well, especially in June! Sounds lovely.
Posted by: leslee | June 18, 2007 at 07:11 AM