One year of love, hugs, and sappy blog posts [MTL]

WISCONSIN NOTES:

• Projet Sweat Montréal –> November Project Montréal’s 1 year birthday. This post is a sappy one. You’ve been warned.
• Shout out to Sue, Nancy, and Sophie for the treats provided!! Simply delicious and clearly baked with lots of love (we could really taste it!!)
• Next week is PR day (2 versions will be offered) + tagging (so bring your gear to get November Project sprayed across the front!).
• Keep being amazing. Oh who am I kidding, you don’t need a reminder ❤️

Let’s talk about something remarkable. Let’s talk about sweaty strangers that high 5 and hug until they are strangers no more. Let’s talk about the fact that you most likely know the favourite candy, movie, board game, and city of 50 people that you might not have ever met. What about the worst haircut they’re ever had, the most empowering person in their life, and a million other things about them? How is it that you know who hates burpees the most, whose laugh echoes the deepest, and whose dance moves simply cannot be tamed. Let’s talk about how this:

…turned into this:

Let’s talk about 52 breathtaking weeks of waking up at ass o’clock to spend a short while with the best kind of people – the people who #justshowup and let all of the loopy love flow.

One of my favourite ways to describe November Project is by saying “It’s like adult gym class”. It used to be because I thought that it did a good job of describing the workouts that may be a variation of an elementary school classic game, involve a game of leapfrog, or end in rock-paper-scissors. What I have now learned is that what really makes this thing that we do so remarkable is the child-like freedom that this group embodies. Where were the adult restrictions that contain so many of us from 9am to 5pm the week that we asked you to take your shoes off and you did so without a question? How is it that you so comfortably (and so loudly) scream profanities while bouncing shoulder-to-shoulder with a pack of people, when so often in life we are taught to keep our heads down? What are we doing that made this morning (which we spent popping balloons against one another while wearing children’s party hats and carrying around a blown-up cupcake mascot) totally acceptable? More importantly, what are we doing right? Because let’s keep doing that shit. This morning was not the weirdest thing that we have ever done and it is certainly not the weirdest thing that we will do. And that’s pretty cool.

It is also a true testament to the way that Wednesday mornings are here to be a safe space for all of us to let go of grownup stuff and to wear bright socks while dancing in the rain. Think about that the next time someone asks you how you can wake up so early for a workout.

Thank you, Montréal, for one spectacular year and cheers to many many more.

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