1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,14 (No 13, we're in a hotel!)

I hate it when there is so much and yet so little to say.

Mostly when you live a life that is a really strange mix of novelty and routine. You know, the same stuff at work, going out on the same nights, to the same places. But then, all the little details are different. I said it before, people, in Banff, will change all the time. Right now, at work and home, there is only the "fixtures", Stéphane, Rémi and me, plus Adam, a mostly unseen bellman and Skip, the 50-something deaf man that only lives in his room or at the Pump and Tap (He's our laundry guy and has a great sense of humour. He used to be a Curling champion). Everybody elses is on the rotation rooster, some will probably stay longer but most will leave around Christmas to go back to school, their family, their "regular" lifes.

Weirdly, despite not having any other life, I also feel like I'm not living my "regular" one. I'm barely waiting, having a great time while at it, but nothing permanent. Change is inevitable, moving on, away, to something else. Sometimes it's almost like a prison term, the routine, not getting out of that small town for months at the time. Isolated. Knowing everybody, every story. At the same time, as said, it's always different and I can't really say I'm in jail when I have freedom of movement and easy access to the other sex. And true, there is nobody with a shotgun following me everywhere!

Still, this is not my life. My life isn't in Montreal anymore, or yet. What sounds the most like a future life that would interest me right now is a weird image of me in those settings:













Map

Those images are from a Québec group of islands off in the St-Lawrence Gulf, the Îles-de-la-Madeleine or Magdalen Islands. I would love to live there for a year, just working and writing, not being disturbed by anything and inspired by the same nothingness that fills every square meter of land and sea to make that place a dream location. And those gigantic beaches on both sides of a road when the tide is low...Man! There is even a small English-speaking communitiy on Île d'Entrée of 400 inhabitants (They have only one phone for the whole island!). The sea would also be a great change of settings from the mountain or the forest (Have you seen, there is no trees!!!).

Until then, I'm waiting for treeplanting, which will be my real life for up to 5 months next year. I strangely can't wait to get back in the bush, again that paradoxal feeling, that "love and hate" thing that seems to follow everything I do and everywhere I go. Treeplanting is fun in hell, that's for sure!

Here's a few things I learned while planting trees that serves me in my everyday, "unregular" life:

-Candies will make anybody smile and work harder.

-You can work much more than you think, for longer periods of time and under the hardest of conditions, but you have to want to.

-Motivation and ambition are personal qualities quite hard to get and maintain to a peak level. But they'll make all the differences in the world between a success and a failure.

-A good meal and a doobie will help you forget almost everything.

-Living, working, eating, partying and sleeping with the same people all the time needs a lot of energy. But what you'll get out of it is better than friends. It's family. After sharing so much, those people cannot not understand you or what you're going through. I love my friends.

-Nature, trees, lake, mountains and great blue skies are as important to your mental health as are your friends.

-Shitting in the woods sucks (I actually don't rely on that knowledge that often here...)

-Partying is great, but do not excess excesses.

Okay, time to go back to the unusual routine.