Was it merely a few months ago the world made sense? When the pleasures of  spa-going, foreign travel and self-discovery trumped minor worries like delayed flights and misplaced baggage? A travel writer’s path is a wondrous journey fraught with great expectations. The tiny pebble-bumps of discomfort are mere trifles in the grand scheme of fresh experience. This writing gig is a gift; to have access to the world’s treasures, great and small. Cities to explore, new friends to meet. A travel writer is a diplomat without credentials. What’s not to love? If there’s a downside, it’s a wee slope. The biggest problems usually involve miscommunication or misspelled surnames. Colorful material for anecdotes to be stored and shared at familial gatherings. No big deal.

That all changed September 11, 2001.

We know the details, the horror, the inexplicable loss and unfathomable grief. No need to repeat them. A New Yorker, my senses have yet to cease reeling in the aftermath. But it’s not just me. All kind-hearted human beings have been plunged into this black well of despair. Perhaps that’s why my recent writer’s block feels like Sisyhphus’ burden. Just when I feel ready to tackle the blank screen, the boulder wrests free from my grasp and hurtles into the morass of grief seared by unspeakable images. The mere thought of jotting down reflections and memories of jaunts seems too trivial an occupation to even consider. Yet, what other choice do I have but to write? Perhaps sharing details of my last visit, which ended on September 10, will help me heal my emotional paralysis. Maybe disclosing some Montreal-related joy will lighten someone else’s heart. Perhaps it will even help me recover my displaced sense of humor.

Which leads me to the purpose of this rambling column. It’s to share a moment now frozen forever in my memory: a wonderful week exploring the beauty of the great northern city of Montreal. A side trip to a wonderfully secluded spa. Visiting trendy fashion designers, discovering chic little restaurants in a gorgeous, clean city. Meeting exuberant, generous shop-keepers, hoteliers and hard-working tourism officials.

When I accepted the press invitation to Design and Fashion Week in early September, my most pressing question was: what spas can I sneak into? The week was crammed with magnificent hotel stays, including the trendy boutique Hotel Le Germain in the heart of Montreal, fashion shows headlined by the city’s darling YSO and restaurant visits to La Colombe, Primadonna and Bubbles. It was all exemplary and entertaining but I was itching for a massage and facial and the schedule was crammed with one whirlwind excursion after another. Tours of the Contemporary Art Museum, Botanical Garden, Canadian Centre of Architecture, Plateau Mont-Royal, the Laurentians. How to make a discrete getaway under the noses of other nosy writers?

Montreal is an incredibly civilized city; clean and brisk with apparently no badly dressed individuals allowed in public. With a most intelligent approach to sanitary concerns: no sidewalk food vendors. Therefore, no strolling eaters (an aesthetically unappealing sight), no litter, no pigeons. What a delight! To experience a city unmarred by piggery is a marvel. Would that all large cities would take Montreal’s lead.

But I digress. This is, after all, a spa column. So where’s the spa? It’s east of the city: Spa Eastman, the new name for the Centre de Sante Eastman. The dynamic president and founder of this nearly 30-year-old institution decided to change the name because she felt the old one sounded too clinical. "Centre de Sante Eastman sounded too much like a medical facility," said Jocelyna Dubuc, who opened the site in 1977. Dubuc personally showed me around this rustic, tranquil destination spa an hour east of Montreal. She even drove me back to Montreal to catch up with the group. Dubuc was going there anyway, to pick up yet another award to be presented to her. She deserves all of them.

Spa Eastman is a simple, elegant facility of 315 acres surrounded by a pristine woodlands and endless Canadian sky. An ideal environment for psychic and physical healing. An antidote to the world’s ills. Perhaps needed more now than ever before.

I arrived late on September 8 and was immediately transported to an idyll of childhood fantasy. I have always been fascinated by fairy tales set in woods and this beautifully isolated retreat seemed the stuff of my earliest and latest dreams. Clean air, rolling hills, vibrant woods and bird song filled my heart as I introduced myself to the staff.

With a menu both traditional and innovative, the facility provides ample choices of therapeutic treatments as well as opportunity for reflection and renewal. Rain massage. Yoga class. Hiking. Meditation. Facials. Psychotherapy. Oxygen baths. Watsu water massage. Mineral body wraps. Olive oil treatments, the latest wrinkle in skin care, promoted as the "Divine Treat from Provence." A potpourri of restorative and mind and body healing options.

Health-conscious meals that don’t sacrifice taste. Therapists who know when to chat and when to be silent. Sweet, tranquil moments to connect with all creatures great and small. Opportunities a heartbeat away to re-connect with a higher power as well as fellow humans. It was a spa experience unlike any I’ve had. Because it was so brief, so sweet and ultimately, for so many reasons, unforgettable. Watching the sunset on my terrace, a small white moth fluttered to my feet. I gently picked it up, opened my palm and watched it fly away.

Naomi Serviss is a freelance travel/entertainment writer whose work has been published in The New York Times, Daily News, Newsday, Boston Herald, American Way, Latitudes, Traditions magazines and assorted newsletters and web sites.