Touching Water

At the Quasi-Secret Beach

Just because Montreal is an island doesn’t mean it’s easy to actually get to the water that surrounds us.  Oh sure, you can see water easily enough.  Walk in any direction for a while and you’ll inevitably run into a view of the St. Lawrence River, but a view is all you’re going to get.  Freight tracks, piers, private property, and various other barriers bar physical access to the water around Montreal in all but a few areas.  There are probably sound reasons for this.  Like, say, that the water around Montreal is deathly cold for the majority of the year.  Or that commercial shipping and industrial access to river water is seen as a greater priority by the powers that be than the frivolous dips citizens might occasionally desire.  Or that the St. Lawrence River might be less of a “body of water” at this point than a “body of oily, chemical poison haunted by the ghosts of disoriented whales.”  We, though, don’t care about any of these reasons for limiting our access to water.  We’re teased by it continually, taunted by its proximity, and we want to touch it.  Yes.  It is suddenly hot and the public pools aren’t yet open and we have a (figurative) thirst for water that only the St. Lawrence can slake.  We will - come hell or high water - touch water on this day.  

There are two legit beaches (and one abomination called a beach that is not a beach) that we know of, but neither are ideal.  One is overcrowded continually and the other much, much too far away.  Both official beaches, by dint of being official, also frequently prohibit entry into the water and enforce that prohibition.  They don’t want, we guess, to be held liable for bathers’ acquisition of superpowers and/or novel cancers.  The official beaches, then, weren’t an option.  Besides, we kind of want to touch water in private if possible.  Access to water is nice, but access to water unbothered by the LSDFK:JSKLSJDFOIWEURJKLSDF of children under the age of 12 would be much nicer.  Likewise, being able to find a spot to rest without surveying the land for 45 minutes would be a treat.  We needed, then, a beach that wasn’t yet rendered low-key awful by attention (as all things invariably are).  We needed a secret beach.

We consulted google.  “Secret Beaches in Montreal” yielded, as expected, a lot of results featuring non-secret beaches in not-Montreal.  We decided, then, to consult a map directly like a modern Magellan.  The map - provided by google because who else? - was similarly unhelpful.

We found, amid all the useless suggestions, a potential spot where water might be accessible.

This little spot held promise for a quasi-secret beach.  We could, at this point, have done more googling to see if we would actually be able to touch water here - but where’s the fun in knowing outcomes in advance?  Why curtail our imagination, cloud our sense of discovery with touched-up jpegs of our destination?  No.  We would head eastward with only the hope of a possible beach.  And!  And we would walk the 10 or so kilometers (6 or so miles) to get there.

Why walk?  Because we can?  Because we don’t drive?  Because this place is further east than the metro goes?  Because experiencing the city through the windows of a bus has a deadening effect on the natural sense of wonder?  Because we once heard that suffering is a pathway to peace?  Because our desire for minimally restricted movement and the ability to smoke or take random turns is unassailable?  Because it might make for a better story?  Choose your poison.  Reasons, remember, don’t matter.  We’re walking to what we hope is an uncrowded beach where water is touchable.

We set out at the hottest time of day and within ten minutes of walking realize that we didn’t pack a towel or anything that might even be used in a pinch as a towel, but there’s no turning back now.  We’ll figure out what to do with the consequences of touching water later.  ONWARDS!

While the sound of cars and ambulances is nice, we wanted a different soundscape for our two hour journey beachward.  We considered a beach-themed playlist curated by the most fun-in-the-sun-oriented algorithm, but quickly reconsidered it.  The beach we hoped to be headed towards was no mere beach.  Its vibes would differ from other mere beaches.  There would be no volleyball there, no coolers of beers.  There would be no boys in boardshorts or sporadic woos.  There, very likely, wouldn’t even be sand.  Our possible beach, then, shouldn’t be overcoded in advance by your Beach Boyses or your Sublimes.  Just as we didn’t want jpegs to prime us the sights we’d see, we didn’t want mp3s (or whatever arcane file format streaming apps use) to instill in us some generic beach vibe presumptively.  We needed, then, something that would capture the adventurous character of our journey, the unknowable and maybe even utopic quality of our destination, and also general beach-iness.  What, then, could satisfy these very specific musical wants?  We scrolled and thought and then we remembered The Beach.  More specifically, we remembered The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack.

Now, we don’t often or ever consider listening to Motion Picture Soundtracks.  You might even say that we never even think about their existence at all (with the exception of SPAWN: THE ALBUM which, released in 1997, is comprised of the most insane collabs of all time (e.g. Metallica and DJ Spooky, Slayer and Atari Teenage Riot, Soul Coughing and Roni Size) and deserves to have a whole book devoted to it and how it is a prism through which we can understand how musical countercultures were finally assimilated into and neutered by mid-90s mainstream cultural bull market insanity) BUT The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack did come to mind forcefully while we stood on a street corner trying to decide what music to listen to as we made our way to a possibly secret beach.

It came to mind, in part, because the movie The Beach is about a similar quest.  In case you’re not hip to early career Leonardo DiCaprio star vehicles, The Beach is (as far as we can remember) about a backpacker (Leo) in Thailand who… wants to find a secret beach?  And he does!  And the secret beach is, like, a commune run by Tilda Swinton?  Oh, but also the commune is only possible because it’s protected by a cartel that grows weed nearby?  And the price (?) of staying at the utopic secret beach is to keep the secret beach secret?  But Leo doesn’t?  There is no reason to watch this movie despite the fact that it’s based on a book by Alex Garland (who recently wrote/directed Civil War) and is directed by Danny Boyle (who directed Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, Trance, Steve Jobs, and many other less good films).  But the movie doesn’t matter.  The movie is beside the point.  It was, in fact, beside the point when we first happened to see it some number of years ago.

We happened, truly for no reason, to see The Beach when we were inadvertently and unexpectedly hanging out with someone who we were fairly certain disliked us actively.  This was maybe in eighth grade?  Anyways, we were “on a date” (not really, though) with this person who, we’re 90% certain, was responsible for some very rude comments about us in the bathroom near our chemistry class.  There is no explaining why or how we ended up hanging out with someone that disliked us and whom we disliked in return, but - more importantly - there’s especially no explaining why we were watching The Beach.  This is just one of those things that happens. This happened and it was neither good nor bad. It just was. Anyways, this movie happened near us and, following that late afternoon, we ended up dating this person that disliked us.  [“Dating” is a very antiquated and incorrect term for what transpired, but it’s the best we’ve got right now and it’ll do for the sake of this story.]  The Beach was, as far as we were concerned, an immaterial and incidental part of things.  It didn’t matter. But also maybe it did? It seems, maybe, to have held some significance somehow for the person we were (mostly inexplicably) dating because, for the very short that we were with them, they would regularly ask us - whenever they happened upon us listening to music on headphones - whether we were listening to the soundtrack to The Beach. We’d be sitting there, minding our own business, and they say something like “Is that the soundtrack to The Beach?” and we had no idea how to take this question.

We were not and still are not sure whether this was a joke or a bit or something else.  The first time they asked we, being unable to resist a bit, said “Yes.”  Their reaction to our answer didn’t let on whether it was a bit.  Neither of us laughed or dropped the ruse (if a ruse it was).  This continued.  They’d see us listening to music and ask if we were listening to The Beach soundtrack and we would say yes.  Sometimes they’d even ask to listen to what we were listening to.  Remember, though, we were NEVER listening to The Beach soundtrack.  Not once.  Never even considered it. We didn’t even know such a thing could be listened to.  But when they asked to listen to what we were listening to, we’d just offer an earbud and they’d then say that they didn’t recognize that song from the film which, of course, they wouldn’t because (again) we totally weren’t listening to the soundtrack at all.  WAS THIS PART OF THE BIT?  We don’t know.  It went on for all the weeks (??) we dated (??).  We were somehow always and never listening to The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack.  It is unclear, to this day, whether this whole thing about The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack was a wonderfully deranged inside joke or entirely earnest.  We could, we suppose, have - y’know - talked this out with the person we were dating (lol) - but it’s important to remember that we did not like each other as human people.  So, yeah, we didn’t.  And we have not thought about this very brief moment of our lives for a very long time.  And we have also not once thought of The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack since then.  Prior to this moment, we would have said that all this left no impression on us and did not matter in any real way - but our brain evidently thinks otherwise. It has for no clear reason retained this memory and offered it up now for us to consider. Why? No clue. To what end? Even less of a clue. And yet…

Anyways, we’re now obviously listening to The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack while, still, standing on a street corner near the very beginning of our journey to a possible secret beach in easterly Montreal.  It is immediately clear that we were quite right never to listen to The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack.  It’s not great.  This, though, really doesn’t matter.

It’s very clear that certain parts of this city were not built with pedestrians in mind.  There’re sidewalks, sure, but there is no way any urban planner ever imagined anyone would use them.  The particular sidewalks we’re using to get to the beach of our dreams are almost the opposite of what you’d hope from sidewalks.  They tilt drastically towards the road as if to encourage us into oncoming traffic.  They are also replete with deep cracks and random fissures to ensure that we are always almost tripping over ourselves.  Thankfully, the road alongside which we’re walking is crazy busy with cars and trucks traveling at maximum velocity.  Feeling very vulnerable walking here we start to consider how seemingly odd it is that cities include areas that are hostile to humans outside of vehicles.  This is - given the state of the world - inevitable, we suppose, but it still seems strange.  We try to consider how strange it would be if, say, a wolverine’s burrow included tunnels and nice little egg-laying zones (do wolverines lay eggs?), but also an area where metal machines zoomed around liable to crush the wolverines who ventured there.  “Welcome, fellow wolverine, to our burrow!  Be careful over there though, that’s the part of the burrow where big trucks full of umbrellas and shoelaces zoom around at murder speeds,” said no wolverine to another ever.  That said, wolverines likely don’t organize their societies around the perpetual increase of speculative profit at the expense of life, love, and everything good.  Another key difference between humans and wolverines…

Does it lay eggs?

We’re distracted from this (very enlightening and fruitful) comparison of humans and wolverines by a huge military compound or something.  We see signs warding off trespassers and announcements that this is a “No Drone Zone.”  We see large swaths of unused land, army green trucks, and nondescript buildings sitting behind barbwire.  We also see old (?) weapons used as lawn decorations (?). 

Quaint.

The shitty sidewalk, too hot heat, uninspiring sights, and low-key bad music is kind of killing our enjoyment of this adventure.  But maybe the badness of the journey is for the best.  Our eventual arrival at the possible secret beach will be all the sweeter given our bitter sojourn through this literal military-industrial complex.  The waves gently splashing onto shore will be all the more soothing and pleasant after our eardrums have been damaged by The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack and the occasional WONK of a huge truck’s horn.  Touching water will be all the more pleasant after we are finished actually melting in the sun.  

Reframing our experience in these terms is easy.  Imagining that unpleasant experiences are the cost for pleasant ones is, at this point, almost a reflex.  We can do this prospectively or retrospectively.  Bad will lead or has lead to good.  Of course, this isn’t always (or ever) the case.  Our life isn’t a series of discrete journeys and, for the most part, isn’t populated by simply bad or simply good experiences.  It is, though, tempting always to imagine it is.  To think that all these experiences are adding up to something and that that adding up will be positive.  We do this to achieve or arrive at that.  In this case, we’re doing a host of non-ideal things to get to a possible ideal beach.  The beach, when we get there, will justify the non-beach hardships we suffered on the way.

This way of thinking, you might think, is flawed.  You might want to say that NO!  It’s all GOOD.  Every part of life is as good as every other part.  THROW AWAY YOUR TELEOLOGICAL AND VALUE-LADEN FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS!  Every moment of life is as important and valuable as every other moment.  In fact, the real beaches are the enormous electrical grids we encounter along the way!

That seems fine, we suppose, but it doesn’t make for much of a story.  Perpetual gratitude and awe in the face of the mundanity of everyday, contemporary experience is hard to sustain.  We like extremes. We like contrast. It’s possible, sure, to drop all the conceits. To recognize that life (and its constituent parts) are not stories or truthfully narrativizable, but that’s neither fun nor easy. It’s hard to drop the impulse to turn experiences into tales, turn random events into good or bad ones in view of some ultimate outcome, fashion a quotidian experience into a lesson of sorts.  It’s hard not only because we use stories to make sense of overdetermined and vague experiences, but also because we share stories with others to validate those experiences and get closer to them.  We don’t tell ourselves stories in order to survive, we tell other people stories in order to live. But it’s difficult to justify telling a story that has little purpose other than its telling, that features no clear message or significant happenings.  It’s hard to offer a narrative that violates the conventions of narrative. It is, further, hard to find someone who will listen to a story that features little reason or action or purpose about actions that yielded little meaning and communicate no discernable message.  We like characters and action and meaning.  We like experiences to be worthwhile and stories about the experiences of others even more so.  We don’t want to waste our time with things that don’t lead to beneficial things, stories that don’t tell us something useful.  But what about all the things that happen without clear benefit?  That have no portable or clear use?  What about, say, our insignificant pseudo-relationship in eighth grade or The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack or this fucking thing?

Does everything need to have a purpose or value to be remembered or shared?  Must all our experiences be oriented towards some goal or higher good?  Can’t we just fuck around?  Yap, as they say, about whatever?  Must it all have a reason?  Must those reasons be clear, spelled out?  Look at that fucking fish building!  What is it for?  Whom is it for?  Why does it feature a fish amidst abstraction?  WHO CARES.  The answers would be less (or at least differently) interesting than the mere fact of it! Look! It’s pretty neat and just sitting there on the side of a road that no one walks on and indifferent to sight and, now, having seen it we want to share it because, we guess, we just like sharing?  It didn’t change our life and we’re assuming (hoping even?) it won’t change yours.  Hell, we’re fairly sure it won’t even feature in our recollections beyond the next day or say, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.  BUT ALSO AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, it also doesn’t mean it matters.  It’s just there.  Like most things.  Like almost everything.  

So, whatever, a fish building is there and we keep walking and walking and , eventually, we see evidence of water in the shape of shipping containers. We can’t help but think of human trafficking when we see shipping containers, so didn’t pause long to admire them. We knew, though, by their presence that we were near the area where the possible beach possibly was.

After listening to The Beach Motion Picture Soundtrack twice over and almost getting hit by three cars and maybe suffering sunstroke (?), we were almost at the quasi-secret beach.  We could feel it in our bones.  But did that matter now?  Was our adventure ultimately really an adventure into a higher, better consciousness that recognizes only the sublime neutrality of all things, the beautiful potency of each and every meaningless feature of the past, present, and future?  

No, we still wanted to touch water.

It was great.  10/10.  Would suffer again.  Forget everything we just said.  No one was there and it was quiet and glorious.

We turned off the “music” we’d be subjected ourselves to, forgot entirely about the fish building and the wolverine societies, and sat on a rock looking at the horizon for a while.  We also did our best to ignore the enormous cranes off in the distance.

And then, despite quite a few misgivings about the consequences, we touched water and remembered that we’d somehow, now, have to lug our weary ass all the way back home from all the way out here - but never once, not even for a second, wondered whether all this was worth it because that’s beside the point and, more obviously, of course it was(n’t).  Duh.

P.S. Here’s a bonus picture of a fast food place positioned next to enormous industrial vats of god knows what such that it looks like the vats are part of the restaurant. 

What if we kissed at the instrustial chemical vat Lafleur?