Unadulterated Happiness

Jump to Comments

- comes from aimlessly wandering. Taking the Metro to any stop, finding my way out onto the street, picking a direction, and walking. It comes from ambling down Prince Arthur Blvd. and taking in the rustic Montreal beauty that I will so miss in a week’s time, and from people smoking cigars on their front porches with their huge poodle dogs sitting peacefully at their feet. It comes from slaving away to make a healthy meal and then It comes from Boston Legal marathons, where I’m giddy with delight. Such a marathon prompted this post, since Shirley Schmidt has just been kidnapped by the crazy, fruity Lincoln Meyer and Alan is taking on the case of a woman who blacks out and does horrible things to people when she gets angry. Be still, my beating heart!

Yesterday I saw Mamma Mia! in theaters. It wasn’t especially well-made, and the younger actors were obnoxious and–well, bad, honestly. But Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep were good, and the music was lovely. I was surrounded by single old women in the theater, which I suppose put into perspective life as a whole. After all, whether you’re 20 or 80, you’re on your own at the end of the day.

What has happened to society’s men? What has happened to the notion of courtship, of working to woo the affections of a woman? — Or have so advanced as a society that men feel that since women are always griping about equal rights, why bother with flowers, letters, general romance and effort? I’m deeply offended by this idea, held by so many men I encounter, that if they deign to express interest in a woman and she doesn’t come running, they’ve no business courting her. Some of the greatest love stories of our parents’ generation took place when women were allowed to play the coquette and men were permitted to pursue. Now I, for one, am a tremendous feminist, and I make well known my view that a woman’s place is wherever she wants to be; however, I don’t feel as though remembering the de facto rules of pursuit and courtship and love conflict at all with women’s rights. The vast majority of women I’ve met enjoy being pursued, whereas the vast majority of men I’ve met feel they’re above pursuit, and that if they order her a beer and pay for it they can continue watching the game in peace and expect to get some later that night. I would never dare attribute the failed relationship rate to something as flighty as this, but I can’t help but wonder whether the new-age stigma attached to gender roles — viewing them as outdated and unaccepting, on the whole — has caused us to drop those that give us potentially useful operating guidelines with respect to the other sex. Perhaps I should have been born in a different century, but is it so unviable that we women, for all of our desire to be seen as equals in the economic, political, and other arenas, still wish to be treated as women in issues of love?

I’ve acquired an obsession with shoes. Not even wearing them, really — just owning them, looking at them lovingly, caressing them.

I went to Caffe ArtJava yesterday for breakfast. I curled up with my book, my iced mocha and my incredibly sweet, chewy, perfectly-toasted-and-buttered Montreal bagel with cheddar.

When I walk down the street in the sunlight, staring at everything around me, I feel like I’m in some sort of movie and that there should be an Ingrid Michaelson soundtrack in the background. Coming here has been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

On another note, I wrote another article for altmuslim.com, this time about the recent capture of war criminal Radovan Karadzic and whether it’s really “justice” for the Bosnian people, as the international community seems to be claiming.

2 Comments

Filed under Montreal

Tags: coffee, courtship, feminism, happiness, Islam, men, Montreal bagels, musicals, the Balkans