Travel to the North, Speak French, Greet Friends.

It's sunny outside, with partial clouds. I made some hot cocoa, because despite the sun it was still chilly. Nine degrees. I don't normally drink hot cocoa. I'm more of a tea person, generally speaking, maybe coffee if I need the buzz. I have a friend, Avaline, who doesn't drink hot cocoa either. Her mother was allergic, not mention, she was friends with my mother. It's how we met when we were five, in Montreal, through our mothers on a play date. These play dates were always completely overrated. Once a year, they'd occur and our mothers would naively think we'd still retain that fragile relationship that had been worked up at our last play date the prior year. Naturally it never really worked out. I was barely bilingual and she spoke about three words of French. 

We were separate people. Ten years after our last play date when I was ten I ran into her on the streets. Spilled tea all down the front of her shirt. Got Asian noodles slopped down the front of mine. One might call this serendipitous, us accidentally covering each other with the food and whatever else we held in our hands, feeling so guilty that we chatted ourselves all the way over to the nearest retail store to invest in something stain-free, and discovering that we were each the child of two mothers that forced us to be playmates for five days each year when they met together in Montreal. 

I suppose you might not believe me. It's a story too perfect. It fits too nicely into the mold of fairy-tale connections. I probably wouldn't believe it, if it I wasn't the one thrown into the series of situations. Anyways, why do I bring up these moments of connection? Hot cocoa. Montreal.

Hot cocoa reminds me of her mother. Montreal reminds me of those five days for each of those five years. We're meeting up in Montreal for five days. We've done so for the past five years, ever since meeting five years ago. Just like our mothers. 

I suppose this story is too perfect.