I grew up in a middle-class household in the conservative city of Toronto. Like any literature-loving, Canadian Jewish male of a certain generation, Leonard Cohen was everything I admired: the Poet, the Traveling Romantic, the Tenant in the Tower of Song. Leonard was from Montreal, a French-speaking city 500 kilometres east, a place way cooler and more bohemian than the business-focused anglophone Toronto. So, when I finally left home in 1991 at the age of eighteen, I followed Leonard’s footsteps and attended the University of McGill in downtown Montreal. I went to Leonard’s City.

Jonathan Garfinkel is an award-winning Canadian author whose work has been translated into a dozen languages. His novel In a Land without Dogs the Cats Learn to Bark (House of Anansi Press, 2023), was published in German as Platz der Freiheit by Rowohlt Berlin.  Garfinkel is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the field of Health Humanities at the University of Alberta, where he is writing a memoir about living with type 1 diabetes and the revolutionary open-source Loop artificial pancreas system. He lives in Berlin.

Unlike Leonard, who studied literature, I enrolled in science – physics, to be precise (my parents wanted me to be a doctor). In my first week at university, someone handed me a bag of psilocybin mushrooms at a party. I had never tried mushrooms before. Later that night in my dormitory room, I took some and ended up wandering the fabled Mount Royal. 
Mount Royal isn’t really a mountain, but everybody calls it “the Mountain”. It’s the soul of the city. A giant Cross, thirty metres tall, at the Mountain’s pinnacle and peak, lights up at night. It’s also a vast park with many trails, semi-wild forests, impressive for the centre of a major city. It is a place to get lost in. 
That night on mushrooms, I wandered the forests and climbed the side of the Mountain, off trail. I used the branches of deciduous trees to shepherd me farther up broken rock. As I reached the top, my hand slipped on a branch. A thorn pierced the skin and blood gushed out. Panicking, I heard a voice. 
“Don’t worry about the blood. It’s your bond.” 
I believed it was the voice of the Universe. It also sounded a lot like Leonard. 
“My bond to what?” I asked. 
The Voice said, “Everything in the universe is conscious. Everything is alive with magic 
and meaning and is in a state of expressing that magic and meaning. How are you expressing yours?” 
By this point I had made my way to the base of the Cross. The lights magnified and 
reflected the beautiful and strange city. The bleeding hadn’t stopped. 
I said, “The only thing I know how to do is write.” 
“Then write,” the Voice said. 
The next day, I dropped out of physics and became a writer. I did not know a thing about writing. I didn’t know what being a writer meant – other than I had to sit down and write things. So I did. Somehow I stuck with it. Writing is perhaps the only thing I’ve remained true to in my life. It started in Montreal with the Voice. With Leonard. I still have the scar on my right hand.

~

Fifteen years later, I no longer lived in Montreal. But whenever I visited – which was often – I walked by Parc Portugal. I always thought of him. Everyone knew Leonard owned the grey-stoned triplex at the corner of the park on rue Marie-Anne, though he rarely lived there. I walked past each time I went through the Plateau in search of smoked meat at Schwartz’s or a drink at the Double Deuce. I walked there hoping I would run into him. I never expected to, but the journey was a kind of meditation, a ritual of acknowledgment, a conjuring of the spirits of the Muse.
    Then, one day in the summer of 2006, there he was in Parc Portugal, sitting alone on a bench. It was a hot July day – July 1, Canada Day – and he was wearing a black suit, fisherman’s cap and sunglasses. Without thinking, I sat down next to him. 
I said, “Hello Leonard.” 
He said, “Hi, friend.” 
He wasn’t surprised. I was. He was incredibly present. I didn’t know what to say. It had taken so much nerve just to sit next to him. So I said the only thing I could think of. I introduced myself and thanked him. Told him how grateful I was for what he’s done for so many of us. I told him that he had made me want to become a writer. 
He nodded and said, “So what do you do?”  
    “I’m a poet,” I said. My first book had just been published that spring, a fact I was proud of. 
    “That’s really cool,” he said, as though I was the first poet he’d ever met.
    There was something off-putting in Leonard’s presence. He sounded like a cool jazz musician, but he also sounded a lot like my grandfather.  
    Then he said, “I’d love to read your poems.”
    I told him I’d mail him a copy of the book. He thanked me. Our eyes turned toward the City. In the distance, you could make out the top of the Mountain peering over crooked rooftops. We talked about the weather – it was a beautiful summer day. The World Cup was on. He asked if I was watching it. I confessed I hadn’t. I asked if he was back in Montreal for good – this was the time Leonard found out his manager had been stealing his money; he was bankrupt. He told me he loved Montreal, but he found the winters too hard on his bones. Then we were quiet. 
    I thanked him and went on with my day. In time, I mailed Leonard my book. Six months later I received a postcard from Calcutta, India. He wrote: “Thank you for your fine book of poems. L. Cohen.” 
I had the feeling I’d encountered an angel, my grandfather and the coolest man in the universe. When I feel lost in this violent and frightening world, I like to think of our meeting. I like to think of his clarity, kindness and reason. When I’ve lost my voice, I return to his, his grace and his style. I like to remember his posture of elegance. I go back to rue Marie-Anne and the Mountain, where it all began.