I have always admired people willing to go above and beyond for love. When my mom began dating in her early 20s, she’d run eagerly to each date, excited that the man she’d be meeting could be her future husband. Once when such a man had trouble finding her house, she ran down the street looking for his car, worried that he’d miss her driveway and she would therefore miss meeting her life partner. 

I’ve always admired my mother. With her quirks and her charms, my relationship with her shaped me into who I am. 

Over the last few months, I’ve thought a lot about my book, once remembering the words of a former editor I wrote for, “I don’t want this to end up on the grocery store floor.” Ultimately, I’ve decided that my book, The Salad Days, will feature a handful of my life’s most impactful relationships written in the style of 52 Friends—a person a chapter. 

Candidly, I am only 27 so a more accurate description is that the book will be a collection of important lessons on relationships I learned in my 20s told through the people who helped me acquire such learnings.  

The title, The Salad Days, represents the early days of relationships. An expression my high school history teacher, Mr. Shaw brought up during one of our discussions. 

The two of us went back and forth trying to properly define the meaning of “salad.” These early days of relationships are often seen as superficial but then how do we begin anything without salad? Or are the salad days fun and something we can look forward to as we build various relationships throughout our existence? 

This is the level of thought the book will explore. 

I only now find myself in the state to properly write a book. An endeavour I’ve thought a lot about and experimented with over the last few years. Luckily, over that time, I’ve acquired the resources, connections and skills to produce something I know you will love. 

The process, nevertheless, remains timely, and I hope to have something out by next year. In the meantime, I write this newsletter so that we can keep in touch. 

Till next time, 

Miriam

This week…

I met Monsieur Marjollet and my friend Valeska for a delicious pizza lunch!

In case you missed last week’s post… it’s been a full year since I finished making 52 friends. Read my summary of the last year right… here.

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Yesterday I met Monsieur Marjollet for coffee, or perhaps it was the day before. He sits in a booth at a Toronto café as I run in, late having been stuck in traffic or because I had a morning meeting run longer than expected. Despite this late arrival, he feels guilty that I’ve driven into the city. 

There are few people like Monsieur Marjollet but there is only one him. I enrolled in two of his French business courses during my second and fourth years of university, respectively—quickly learning that it is common practice for Christian M., as he signs off emails, to walk around handing out chocolate while students handwrite answers to test essay questions. 

He is known by these students to be poised and inquisitive. Monsieur Marjollet who has since retired was in his late 60s when I turned to my classmate Paulina and whispered that he is more technologically savvy than my parents. A story he finds flattering when I share it—he assumes he lags in those skills. 

It is the desire to learn that makes Monsieur Majollet someone cherished. He’s interested in various topics—including learning Danish but also in his students. “Is Daria working in Amsterdam now? Did Pegah move into the city? And Valeska?” he asks of my friends from his class. 

There are two words for the irregular verb, “to know,” in French. The first, savoir, means to know something factually. The second, connaitre, means to know by way of familiarity—to have personally experienced.  

A French teacher I once had during a summer camp in Quebec explained that the easiest way to make the distinction is that the V in savoir refers to verbs while the N in connaitre refers to nouns. For example, savoir would be used for saying, “I know how to dance,” while connaitre would be used in this sentence, “I know Miriam.”

As a professor, Monsieur Marjollet knew me as a student. His job was to concentrate on intellectual abilities with little insight into personal lives. I’d submit my work for grading and anxiously wait for it to be assigned value as if it were some sort of currency. 

Though I was never one to associate my worth with a mark, I observed that a grade whether high or low was a form of deception. A professor seemed to like me more when I earned an A or less when my preference for creativity never led me far in a subject like finance. Figures acted as the basis of familiarity—the same way they do in most grownup contexts. 

We say I am a lawyer who works these many hours. I’ve had these many promotions. I’ve visited these many countries. This is how much my home costs. And then we feel like we know someone. 

When Monsieur Marjollet became the Head of New College at York University, he discovered the non-academic life of students. A perspective few professors are lucky to face—to deal not with knowledge but with people’s lives. 

“For me, 52 Friends, in other words, you, are an example of the student versus the human being. I knew you as a good student. 52 Friends showed me a real person beyond a bright Schulich student,” he says. 

It is the lunch hour and the café we are sitting in is becoming increasingly noisy. This annoys both of us. Monsieur Majollet leans in to tell me that he has always been a pessimist. Since as long as he can remember, which is to his early childhood in his native France, the glass has been half empty. 

“My mother’s mother died when I was born, maybe that is why,” he says. 

I understand him in certain ways. My mother’s mother died when she was pregnant with me and although I don’t consider myself a pessimist, I have been prone to periods of unhappiness. “My sadness stems from disillusionment,” I say. 

I have a habit of idealizing situations. I’ll walk a street and picture it as the set of the 1960s film. I’ll find humour in a bad date. I’ll listen to Puccini when I accomplish a great goal as if he is singing to congratulate me. Then someone, usually someone completely irrelevant, will question my whimsyness and I’ll doubt my right to see the positive in most things. 

“My grandparents always say that life is like a dream,” I say. 

“I don’t know if I see it that way,” says Monsieur Marjollet. “Write more about your grandmother. She’s much more interesting than me. Surviving a war. Two immigrations.” 

Growing up among Russian Jews, I considered my grandparents ordinary. My grandfather, Mordecai, the optimist. My grandmother, Rozalya, the realist. The two survived the Holocaust thanks to their parents' efforts and met in Vilnius, Lithuania in the early ‘60s. In the 1970s during the Soviet aliyah, they emigrated to Israel with my father and his sister and then to Canada eight years later. 

Life made the two tough and practical. My grandmother laughs when I tell her about some of my problems, assuring me that they are not problems but eventual memories that should be funny. 

Her name, Rozalya, reminds Monsieur Marjollet of a Polish lady he knew during childhood. A woman who left Poland with her sisters after World War One with no education to work on farms in France. She later became a housemaid for his maternal grandparents and it was around that time he came to know her—eventually, she married and had eight or nine children. 

“The hardships these Rozalyas have suffered without complaining humble me,” he says. 

Monsieur Marjollet, the pessimist, is anything but misunderstanding. He’s currently responsible for a 94-year-old man with Alzheimer’s—a man who pre-COVID and until the age of 89 rode his bicycle around Toronto. We acknowledge that the long-term side effects of the pandemic are failing to be fully addressed. I mention the lack of care my mom received as a breast cancer patient during that period—the identity crises many of us faced in a constricted world. 

This pandemic that ate into my early 20s and changed my perception of time—the lost years amplifying my wish to live meaningfully. It’s been five years since I graduated from university, five years that feel like a lifetime ago, sometimes it feels like just yesterday. For Monsieur Marjollet, it is the latter.

I thought of myself as an adult when I started my degree at 18, but can now recognize this was the beginning of adulthood and self-discovery. At a young age, first-year students join courses like The Meaning of Life.

“There are people who fail that course. Imagine failing The Meaning of Life at 18. I don’t know the meaning of life,” Monsieur Marjollet says. “Do you?” 

“No,” I answer.

We’re led to believe that if we want to live a full life with positive relationships, romantic or platonic, we need to prepare ourselves for one another like an assignment for grading or a sales presentation. If, however, we truly aspire to be known by way of familiarity then we should want to be accepted as we are—optimist or pessimist.

“Accept ourselves and then have others accept us,” says Monsieur Marjollet. 

“Maybe that is the meaning of life,” I say. “To accept.”

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I’m sitting at Covernotes, a café I frequent often; a half café, half bookshop. I’m trying to write my book but can’t help myself from eavesdropping on the conversation the two girls next to me are having. 

“I didn’t want it on store credit,” one girl tells another about her most recent attempt to return a brown dress at Artizia. 

I sip my coffee and finally, I am ready to write. 

The following is a glimpse into The Salad Days… 

When I was younger, I often felt older than I do now. I positioned my mind like a calendar checklist that would have allowed me to accomplish all my greatest life goals by 25. To my disappointment, with each passing year, I missed a box or two; no husband, no great novel. 

Kirsten, on the other hand, had the things that I wanted. She met her husband Jeremy when she was 17 and was a volunteer with a Christian organization in New Zealand. He is five years her senior and within a few weeks of dating, the two decided that they would marry. 

At the end of high school when I found out she was planning on volunteering and delaying the start of university, I, her class fellow, and sometimes project-mate, considered it a major risk. Kirsten married Jeremy at 20 before starting university, graduated from her program at 24 and in 2020 was chosen as one of only 10 United Nations Youth Champions of Disarmement. 

The two of us are sitting across from one another at the local mall, it is the only place open on Good Friday but we’re both aware that if I wasn’t working on such a project, the chances of ever speaking after high school would have been slim. 

We’ve given each other a recap of the last few years when we chatted over Zoom the year prior and since then our exchanges primarily consisted of me sending Kirsten questions about her Christian upbringing via Instagram. She answers each one thoughtfully and thoroughly, but this time as we sit and converse in person in the middle of this mall, Kirsten asks me, “What did you mean by ‘those Christian girls’ in the piece that you wrote with Mr. Shaw? What is your perspective of the Christian girl?” 

“I guess what I meant is that life seems easier because Christians have the same intentionality when it comes to relationships,” I answer. 

“That can be true but it can also be patronizing because a woman often isn’t seen as complete until she’s married,” says Kirsten. 

“Well I look at you and Kathrine, and the people my age that seem to be in the happiest relationships all have some kind of religion guiding them,” I say. 

“Do you feel like your life is stalling?” says Kirsten. 

“In some ways, because I think that if I had someone then I would start planning with him or we’d make decisions together,” I say. 

“That’s something I’ve noticed, when a couple is serious the “I” switches to “We,” she says. 

“When I thought of real love, I’ve always thought of it as “We.” That’s why when I was younger I was never in a rush to have a relationship because to me a real relationship meant marriage,” I say. 

“That’s interesting because I think people often think of the initial stages of infatuation. For Jeremy and I, when we first got together, there truly was a lot of love and deep respect but now it’s much more about being the other person’s companion. Like his wins are my wins and seeing him fulfilled and happy is amazing. It feels less like an infatuation love and more like a soulful love. Like I’m tied to him in a way that’s much deeper and more holistic. It’s about the entirety of his person rather than just the parts I know,” says Kirsten. 

She admits that because she married young, she became an adult quickly. An old boyfriend comes up, a relationship that she categorizes as toxic. I’m surprised that Kirsten, years later, and now married, still remembers something a boy told her nearly a decade prior. 

“Do you think someone can be mean to you and nice to someone else?” I ask. 

“It depends because we never know if something about us reminded the person of something from their past or triggered something in them. We were trying to be friends after the relationship was over but I realized that forgiveness is recognizing that people are human but that doesn’t mean you have to be their friend, it just means you can recognize their humanity,” she says. 

“At what point do you think kindness is taken advantage of?” I ask. 

“When I think of being taken advantage of, it’s usually been circumstances where either I’ve been seen as just a means to an end, like in refugee camps, or where there’s been an actual hurt. I don’t feel the times when I’m a means to an end are that hurtful. It hurts in the moment but usually, I can’t blame someone for that and I don’t hold that against folks. I think the other times are more difficult, like when a friend or someone I’ve trusted or developed a relationship with ends up using me,” she says. 

Kirsten recounts a story about her grandfather who was a pastor in New Brunswick. “He was helping out someone who needed money for groceries. He had gone grocery shopping with the man and they were stopping by the church, and as my grandpa was unlocking the door, the guy kind of pushed him and tried to rob him, demanding my grandpa give him his wallet. My grandpa punched him in the face, left the groceries, and went inside and locked the door. So a real sense that he wouldn’t be taken advantage of but still fully believed that even though the man tried to rob him that he still deserved to keep the groceries.”

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The following is a glimpse into The Salad Days… 

I once asked my friend Claire, a born and bred woman from Dijon, what it meant to be French. She explained it is a state of mind—being both annoyed and unbothered. Practicing altruism but also caring only about oneself. That is the French charm. 

Claire and I met on BumbleBFF in November 2022. We clicked immediately. Or maybe it was our mutual desire to connect that allowed us to become fast friends. “Do you want to try?” she asks, handing me her wine glass as we sit on a patio in Miami. 

We speak half in French, half in English but Claire is blunt. “Do you also find American girls dumb?” she says, as if not asking a question but trying to affirm that Americans value casualness in all their relationships. 

“I think maybe they’re afraid to be vulnerable,” I say. 

Claire is in the midst of a romance with a Brazilian-American named Igor. 

“It’s a fun relationship,” she says. “I try to do something every day. Either meet him, a friend or go to the gym.” 

I realize that we only have about 17 days to build a friendship. Claire is returning to France and me to Toronto. We meet nearly every day. 

We watch two movies at the theatre. We go to an art museum, bar hop, cheer on French soccer, and eat at a restaurant called Baba Gump. Most importantly, we dive deeply into conversation. 

The two of us are sitting across from one another at a Christmas-themed cocktail bar. “For me, there is a difference between passion and love,” she says. 

“I agree,” I answer. “Passion is just the initial spark. Love, I guess you can discover you love someone after a year. It’s something that’s built.” 

“Exactly, yes. Passion is short-lived,” she says. 

“They’re easy to confuse,” I add. 

Later that week, we walked around the Pérez Art Museum. “You are beautiful,” Claire tells me when I arrive a bit dishevelled but in a sundress. It is the French way, to be stylish but to never try too hard. 

“I decided that I’m going to tell Igor that if I were to stay in Miami, I could have fallen in love with him,” she says. 

She aimed to profess that she could have loved him with no motive. 

“That is beautiful,” I say. 

I’m aware that Claire ended a long relationship earlier in the year. A boy she had met when she was 16 and whom her family knew well. 

“I was engaged to him,” she admits to me as we share a shrimp platter. I am happy that in a city where everyone seems to count calories, I finally have someone to indulge with. 

“Oh wow,” I reply. 

“We were only engaged for a month,” she says. 

The relationship ended because her ex-fiancé decided to join the French army without consulting Claire. 

“He didn’t consider me,” she says. “To love someone is to consider them.” 

“How did you handle the breakup?” I ask. 

“The first month, I didn’t know what to do. I cried to my parents. But I knew I was lying to myself. Even when we made love, I was lying to myself. A woman can lie to herself but her body never will,” she laughs.

“Do you miss him?” I question, mainly as a means to understand my own recent heartbreak. 

“No,” she says. “He messages me from time to time but I ignore him. I think it’s because he hasn’t made love to anyone else yet so he thinks of me.” 

We met twice more before we both had to leave Miami. A city Claire had once planned to begin building a life in before concluding it was mainly for amusement. 

“I’ll come visit you in Dijon,” I promise her. 

In June 2023, I split from my parents and brother on a family trip to take the train to spend the afternoon with Claire in Dijon. She greets me with a double-cheek kiss at the train station. 

“We are in a rush,” she tells the waiter at the restaurant we sit down at. “My friend is only here for a few hours. We need to order right away.” 

We choose a fish and a meat dish and swap plates halfway through eating. 

“The reason you couldn’t find yourself in Miami,” she says, “is because you are lively and smart and not a stupid American.” 

“Are you seeing anyone?” I ask. 

“Yes, I have a new boyfriend. I actually live with him and we have a cat,” Claire says. 

I am surprised by how much has changed in only six months. 

“With my first boyfriend, I never wanted a cat. But I was convinced.” 

How quickly salad turns to meat and potatoes with the right person. We share dessert at another restaurant, I buy Dijon mustard and Claire drops me off at the train station with a big hug and a double-cheek kiss. 

I have never considered myself a writer. I was discouraged from becoming a journalist—told that it was a dying field in which I would never make any money. So for years, after university, I wrote mainly in my head until my desire to share ideas threw me back into wordplay. You know the outcome as 52 Friends. 

The first time I considered myself someone worthy of being able to write a book was in December 2022 in my apartment in Miami. It was simply because, after many sleepless nights, I decided that if I wanted to, I could. I was experiencing a sadness so profound that I developed the ability to type 5000 words in two hours only to read back my work weeks later and discover that it was unusable. But the thoughts I managed to jot down acted as the foundation of my writing over the coming months. 

I knew that if I were to write a book, the contents would have to be something I would be incredibly proud of. Something my children would read one day while I told them, “I wrote this in my 20s. I didn’t realize how young I was then.” 

The topics of loneliness and friendship which I have devoted my work to are difficult ones to cover because in the pursuit of understanding such important areas comes an emotional tax. In January 2023 after returning home to Toronto from Miami and finding myself in an abusive romantic relationship the year prior, I promised that I would spend the year ahead of me meeting people and documenting friendships. 

Through hundreds of conversations, I became worried about the state of our social health. Many of us have developed a fear of one another. The question to me was not why, because the cause is not solely our doing. The better question, and the one I wanted to answer, was how do we build a friendlier world given the existing circumstances? Through conversations and personal reflection, my book will summarize my year of thinking.

When I was certain that I would begin writing, I phoned Dr. Ami Rokach. A man who has written tens of books throughout his over 40-year career as a clinical psychologist focusing on loneliness, relationships and sex. He reminded me to think of the reader's experience. I had met so many people but including too many stories could become confusing. There is also a stigma surrounding loneliness and Dr. Rokach forewarned me that some people may not want their stories publicly known. Still, he said, “If you write a book, I’ll write the forward.” 

Finally, I hope to capture a feeling of vibrancy and tenacity—like Coney Island in the summer of the 1950s. Over the next few months, I’ll share an essay that will offer you a glimpse into my book once a month.

It begins here with an important character, my high school history teacher, Mr. Shaw and an explanation of the book’s title, The Salad Days. 

I remember my first tenth-grade history class with Mr. Shaw because I was unimpressed by him. The word in the hallways was that he was one of the school's best teachers, so naturally, I expected to be greeted by an entertainer. Instead, I was met with a man who calmly tried to familiarize himself with each student. Then, he played a game where he named a country and asked us to name the capital city.

Eventually, as I got to know Mr. Shaw, I realized there was wisdom to his stability. He created a classroom where everyone felt comfortable being themselves and that made him a great teacher. 

I called Mr. Shaw in January 2023 to invite him to coffee as part of my 52 Friends project. I had just come out of a long period of sadness and I didn’t know what I wanted out of life but I knew that I wanted to speak to someone who made me feel like I was significant. Like the 15-year-old who was once so sure of her identity. 

We met at a coffee shop not far from the high school. The last time I saw Mr. Shaw was when I came to visit him after my first year of university. He told me then that I was becoming funnier with age. He has now retired but works as a Volvo mechanic. 

What I thought would be a one-time coffee became a ritual. Every few weeks, Mr. Shaw and I meet to talk about life and share ideas. We were both surprised by the attention my project was garnering, an area of concern for two relatively private and unknown people. 

“You could be like Elena Ferrante,” I say when I propose the idea of a book, referencing the anonymous Italian author. 

“I’ve always taken pride in my work and I do give the best brake job in the city but I have no desire to be known. No talk shows. No pictures,” he says. 

We land on some sort of compromise. Perhaps the way I’ve always worked, ideas first. 

Our conversations began here. I told Mr. Shaw about my time in Miami and my lacklustre romantic relationship. 

“I came to visit him over a weekend and I felt so lonely,” I say. 

“That’s really interesting. To come visit someone but to feel lonely,” he says. 

“I was so naive,” I say. 

“People can be deceptive. The world isn’t always honest,” he says. 

“My dad says the men in Miami only care about making money, working out and getting laid,” I say. 

“Sounds like it,” says Mr. Shaw. 

He goes on to explain that ideas are the real drug behind relationships.

A few weeks before our first coffee, Mr. Shaw’s close friend and a fellow teacher, Mr. AppleJohn passed away suddenly. I learned that they once shared an apartment decades ago and that Mr. AppleJohn was a man of thought. 

“AppleJohn used to call the early part of a budding relationship ‘the salad days,’” he says. 

“What does ‘the salad days,’ mean?” I ask. 

“The interactions are light, fresh, and new compared to the meat and potatoes of a relationship where people bear down on important issues and challenges,” he says. 

“Interesting. I wonder if some people stay in the salad days for longer than others,” I say.  

“I would think quite likely. Perhaps youthfulness contributes to this whereas an older person or an older soul might think too much time in salad is a waste of valuable time. It’s a very nuanced interplay of emotions, goals, and outcomes. A colleague once spoke of wanting children and felt time was against her so she married the first person who asked. A rather practical decision. May or may not be love,” he says. 

“It seems that it could be about balance. Too much time in salad and the relationship lacks practicality. Not enough time in salad and we risk missing joie de vivre,” I say. 

“I agree,” he says. 

I thought about the salad days concept for a long time. Once telling Mr. Shaw that when I go on dates I ask myself if I could rob a bank with this person. Not because I ever intend to become a criminal but because I desire to be with someone complementary and trustworthy enabling the heist to be successful in theory. 

“Do you think that love that exists during the salad days is real?” I ask Mr. Shaw. 

“Two people can love each other very much but still break up,” he says. 

“What do you mean?” I ask. 

“I once had a girlfriend, this was before I went to teach in Japan, and we were together for a year and a half. My plan was for her to come with me to Japan but her plan was for us to stay in Toronto. People can see compromise in different ways,” he says. 

“I see,” I say.

“Now I realize it was probably just salad,” he says. 

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