Paths

Just when I felt myself losing my community spirit, I flew away from Montreal.

After two pandemic years and a bitter breakup, my neighbourhood of Pointe-Saint-Charles was no longer welcoming but, rather, more indifferent, like a bad boyfriend who makes no effort.

Take the vélorue incident after the borough installed a bike path on Island Street. Flanked on both sides by picnic tables and a public garden, it was a seemingly innocuous installation to curb car use and give the community another place to meet and play. The result? Insults, vandalism, intimidation. I think back to the many windows lining the street and their identical signs. “NON À LA VÉLORUE” they read, glaring down at anyone enjoying the installation below. Thankfully, most are gone now.

Then, I lost faith in my notion of community–that it meant enthusiastic cooperation and peaceful conflict resolution. I avoided walking down Island because I didn’t want to be seen enjoying something so contentious. If you must hide your feelings to avoid disagreement, then surely you don’t have much of a community at all.

And then I left. Seven months in Guadeloupe, a Caribbean island, and seven months in Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea.
In the rocky mountains of Corsica, it might seem at first glance that everyone falls swiftly into agreement, over what clothes to wear, what values to espouse—and how to move the region forward while under the thumb of French governance. Of course, that would be too easy. Disagreement is everywhere: between the sovereigntists and the autonomists, the city dwellers and the country folk, the youth and the elderly.

While we were driving along the winding roads to the family home of a new acquaintance, she recounted the latest village drama. Two factions were at war, divided by a proposed road extension, and it was getting ugly. We turned a corner and she pointed at the road in question. I cackled at the sight of a large banner hanging from a fence: “NON À L’EXTENSION DE RUE.”

What struck me about Corsicans, a notoriously tight-knit community, was that though disagreement abounded, the strength of their ties never wavered. What held them together was much stronger than any difference of opinion, and it compelled them to find a way to work things out, even when things got unpleasant.

There was a lesson in there and, with it, a softening of the part of my heart that had hardened. Perhaps I had expected too much in my narrow perception of what community should look like.

I came back to Montreal with a renewed appreciation for the city and the quaint little corner of it that I call home. It hadn’t changed, but I had. ”