people with the time, money and basic freedoms that travel requires, the most straightforward reason to travel is the possibility of meeting other queer people. Unable to see anything of the destination I’d flown so far to reach, I’d sit at my hotel-room desk as I worked on my latest book, “Imagine a City: A Pilot’s Journey Across the Urban World,” a memoir about growing up as a gay kid in a small place and a pilot’s love letter to great metropolises, and wondered if it might soon read as a memorial to a planet that had permanently dimmed.įor many L.G.B.T.Q. In some cities, I, along with my fellow pilots and flight attendants, stayed in airport hotels that we were not allowed to leave. At ground level in many places, however, local restrictions had stilled and depleted the streets almost beyond recognition. Over the last few years, from the cockpit at night, the world’s large cities remained as bright and beguiling as ever, despite the pandemic. Now, 30 years later, I’ve flown to Montreal often as a pilot. I was indifferent to jazz, but I liked road trips and couldn’t believe that Pittsfield, our small hometown in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, was within driving distance of a French-speaking metropolis. My boyfriend back then - even after two years together, we remained so fearfully secretive that I often burned his letters - was keen to attend the jazz festival. I first came to Montreal in 1992, when I was 18. Then I mangle a “merci” and step between the tables, each crowded with young tech workers speaking in euphonic blends of French and English, to a stool by the window overlooking the crowded street. I order a coffee and croissant, then take a moment to remind myself which country this cafe is in - a familiar quandary for long-haul pilots - and to confirm that the bank note I pull from my pocket is Canadian. “Bonjour,” says the barista as I reach the head of the line.