From Here: A Love Letter to Montréal

I belong here because I love the streets as much as the alleys, the forests as much as the libraries, the bars as much as the places of prayer. I belong here because I love the smooth contours of our topography: from the top of Mount Royal to the depths of Lac Saint-Louis, from the Lake of Two Mountains to Pointe-aux-Prairies, from Rivière des Prairies to the Saint-Lawrence River. I belong here because I love the smell of gin, incense, and perch; and I belong here because je me souviens that the Breath of Life referred to in Genesis can be found in the boozy air of The Wiggle Room, the smoky air of l'Oratoire Saint-Joseph, and the fishy air of Parc des Rapides. I belong here because I love almost all of the beautiful creatures on this island paradise: the salamanders on the Mountain and the frogs in the River, the falcons in the Sky and the buskers below the Earth.