Meet me in the middle
There are these spaces in the city of Montréal, that exist either of their own accord or that seem to only exist when we create them, that are so horrific and beautiful at the same time. The backrooms, not necessarily as a system of lore, but as a visual medium, are so interesting. Because the aura and the air of the space functions never as a destination, but as a journey point.
Take the Atwater mirror tunnel, I know mentioning anything associated with Dawson College is heretical here, but hear me out on this one! The tunnels are designed in such a way that you can see the people behind you, while not turning around to acknowledge them. This tunnel is so horrifying to me. There’s a way to the aged edges where the wall meets the tunnel. Is someone following you? You’ll see, but in order to do that, you have to look at yourself. For some people, that notion is just as horrifying as seeing someone else. The concept of no one following you is equally as spooky as there being someone, because it forces you to admit when you’re afraid of yourself.
And I held this belief for the longest time, but not everyone thinks of this space the same way I do. For years before she moved, my daycare supervisor Jenny would post a video onto her instagram of her walking through the tunnel in slow motion simply captioned Walking with self-confidence. Once a day, everyday, for years. I of course couldn’t understand this! Didn’t she see what I saw? The horror of being forced to contend with yourself? But to her it wasn’t this space where people are forced to reckon with their internal monologue, but a place to project out self confidence, to embrace inner beauty, and to love yourself.
It’s not that metros can’t be both (the circular area in Square-Victoria is macabre in its own unique way), but that, really, the inbetweens of any journey aren’t as objective, since they reflect the journey that each of us as individuals is on. In a weird way, I think Hotel California puts it best “We’re all just visitors here, of our own device” and “you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave” being apt reflections of anyone’s journey. We’re all visitors to any place we are in, and we’ll never stop moving, not permanently, at least till we die. We’ve all somehow, by hook or by crook, ended up at the places we are now, no matter how much we might want to change that, we are where we are.
I realize now in the end, that it’s not that I hadn’t stopped to smell the roses, but that I’d stopped for so long that I began to worry which of the rose thorns might have something that could render me ill. There’s no correct way to experience a rose, both marvelling at the beauty of the petals and recoiling at the fear of the thorns are correct responses, but in between, we can find something even more beautiful. The same is true with liminal spaces, so next time you are in a metro station, take a second, and try to think about the ways in which you let this in-between point affect you as well as vice versa.
