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nickfourtimes's review
4.0
1) "Step off Olmsted's wide and well-managed winding paths, away from the joggers, cyclists, and cross-country skiers, and one enters into a series of micro-cultures in which the rules of engagement, dress codes, and meeting times are well-known to the initiates. Stilt walkers, jugglers, skateboarders, musicians of all kinds can be found here. These micro-cultures require time, energy, skill, and sometimes props, instruments, and permission to join. What is most remarkable about them, apart from their sheer proliferation and proximity, is their precision. Foodies eat jams and vegetables of their own canning. Amateur circus tumblers practice slack-rope walking and two-person handstands. Teenagers sort out pecking orders, and nature-lovers cultivate relationships with raccoons, squirrels, and foxes. Some pray, some play, but all perform their identities, or some part thereof, in the unique space-times of the mountain.
For it is not the same mountain in the day as in the night, nor in the winter as in the summer. It is one mountain for lovers, another for mourners. The mountain that young parents seek out, exhausted, is not the mountain that the queer kids find in their fragile packs. The early-morning runners who nod almost imperceptibly in passing know they share a secret with the dawn and one another about strength, solitude, and joy. Those of us who have walked to the summit at midnight in winter with only the soft crunch-crunch of salt-free snow to accompany us could write another chapter on the mountain's moonlight, silence, and the taste of its cold. It is the only place in Montreal where I have seen fireflies at dusk, [and] felt my ghosts give me reprieve."
For it is not the same mountain in the day as in the night, nor in the winter as in the summer. It is one mountain for lovers, another for mourners. The mountain that young parents seek out, exhausted, is not the mountain that the queer kids find in their fragile packs. The early-morning runners who nod almost imperceptibly in passing know they share a secret with the dawn and one another about strength, solitude, and joy. Those of us who have walked to the summit at midnight in winter with only the soft crunch-crunch of salt-free snow to accompany us could write another chapter on the mountain's moonlight, silence, and the taste of its cold. It is the only place in Montreal where I have seen fireflies at dusk, [and] felt my ghosts give me reprieve."
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