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Posted May 5th, 2025

Thanks to my friend Brenda for sending this picture of her sporting a new dress/duster she purchased from Tallulah Freelove. Doesn’t she look great!?

Brenda (from Saskatoon) and I go way back—to the early eighties, when Pierre Elliott Trudeau was handing out grants to anyone interested in learning French at Université Laval in Quebec City. We met when I dropped my suitcase onto one of two single beds in a house in suburban Quebec City. That moment sparked the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

We bonded over breakfast cigarettes, late-night/early-morning poutine, fondue parmesan, Cuvée des Patriotes, and our attempts to sing harmony on Four Strong Winds—loudly, and sometimes late on a city bus.

The program at Laval attracted mostly young people from across Canada—and even around the world. Oddly, it also included a group of middle-aged Japanese nuns, who must have been traumatized by the end of the first week. “My underwear cost 99 cents and 98 cents are up me arse,” my then-new friend Sheila from Newfoundland announced to her class. Welcome to Canada.

The friendships formed in those years remain some of my closest to this day. We hung together in a way you might understand only if you've ever found yourself part of a minority group for the first time in your life, and for an extended period of time. It was a truly educational experience—an adventure wrapped in security. The program let us navigate a “foreign” culture and language within our own country’s borders and learn from fellow Canadians with vastly different backgrounds.

I think about those days often—especially now, when the country feels so divided. In truth, the greatest value of that program wasn’t the French language lessons (as one of my professor quipped, “There are students and there are tourists who attend this program—and you, you are a tourist.” She wasn’t wrong). Even if my grammar didn’t improve much, my admiration for French culture certainly did. That "joie de vivre " is hard to replicate when you’re tethered to a one-hour lunch break. But the real gift of that time in Quebec City was the cast of characters who shared it with me.

Nader from Iran once showed me a shoebox full of 24-karat gold—brought with him when his father sent him and his siblings to Canadian universities to escape the revolution back home. Mary from Halifax brought Barrett’s Privateers to a brand-new audience—yes, every verse. There was no separation between gay and straight we were just an English gang who danced together and partied together and the lines that might have separated us in other environments were blurred and (gratefully) blurred forever. Shannon from Alberta was proud to tell me that Alberta was rat free. (it still is, I check from time to time) Sheri from Winnipeg was my dance partner at a local club where the DJ would start playing Memory Motel the moment we walked in. She also guided me through cutting my own hair during the pandemic—she’s a lifelong pro of the self-cut. Angela arrived a with a unique personal language, where the word “poorly” could mean just about anything, depending on tone and timing. We all copied her. Louise from the West Coast—was famous for her rallying cry: “Grow up and have a beer!” (she is a retired teacher now) And then there was Mark from Vancouver, who often spoke of taking holy orders (usually when three sheets to the wind), but who was never exactly destined for the cloth.

These are small, even silly stories—but together, they created something profound. That time in Quebec City opened my mind beyond my own experience. It taught me to listen, to respect, and to see beauty in perspectives different from my own. There truly is more that ties us together—and we need to remember that.

Brenda and I spent a few weeks together earlier this year in the south of France. Those Quebec years built strong bonds, and I guess this is a bit of a love letter to Quebec City—and to those who shared that time with me. You know who you are.

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