Au Revoir Montreal!  My daughter is graduating from McGill and packing up her college life. We are filled with sweet sorrow. We stuff the car as full as our hearts and zip around for one more look at this beautiful, quirky, human city.

Join us.  Breakfast begins at Atwater Market. We stroll arm in arm past green beans and grapes, pink, red and yellow flowers and fruits polished to perfection, lined up like soldiers waiting to be picked. If death by chocolate is the way to go, the market’s Premiere Moisson Bakery is where we sit and die right into the deepest brown mousse  - - celebrating, “Hooray! No more exams!”

Next stop:  The Old City.  Shall we go by Bixi (think “bike” and “taxi”), Montreal’s just-launched, large-scale bicycle sharing system? Cobbled streets are full of tourists. Who wouldn’t want to see the spectacular Gothic Revival Notre Dame Basilica where Celine Dion married?  Enter and look up! The ceiling is deep blue and decorated with golden stars. The rest of the interior is a colorfest of blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold.

Jazz buskers, crazy acts of fire and people on stilts entertain us during our mother-daughter lunch at Place Jacques-Cartier. Are we in Europe or just this hidden jewel city of North America?

Ah! the island that is Montreal.  Cruise with us on the Amphibus Tour down the St. Lawrence past the city’s quirkiest site: Grain silo # 5, a 10-story high abandoned gray grain tower. This silophone makes “a stunningly beautiful echo” of your voice when you telephone into it.

What sound does a mother bird make when a daughter leaves the nest?

Tips:
Whether going to or graduating from college, leaving home is a big transition for students and their parents. 

•     Let go.  Don’t dictate.  Even if you’re paying for it, letting students choose their new color scheme, bedding, accessories, etc. helps them become independent.
•    Paint and posters (the cheapest way to liven up a new dorm room or apartment) also helps student express their new identity.
•     They’re gone.  Can I re-decorate?  Yes, you can repaint their black bedroom BUT use tact when thinking about making changes.  Be sure your daughter or son has a place that still feels like home.


To learn more about Toby Israel, the visionary founder of the new field of Design Psychology, visit her website at www.designpsychology.com.

Copyright Toby Israel, 2009