Whenever I visit Ottawa, I'm faced with so many old memories from my childhood. Some things have changed since then, other things have changed less than expected. I'm faced with the fact that you cannot step in the same river twice. No matter how accurate are my memories, that place I grew up will exist only in those memories. After all, it was a place and so much more.
Close to home - I cannot say.Close to home feeling so far away.Forever searching; never right, I am lostIn oceans of night. ForeverHoping I can find memories.Those memories I left behind.-Enya
As one might imagine, once one grows bigger, everything else seems a little smaller. My old house, the streets. Certainly the distance across the community is a lot smaller now! But my old school remains mainly as I left it. A garden of trees I helped to plant is now a pretty sizable grove, but everything else is pretty much as I remember.
I think many of my childhood memories will always reside around that building. When I think of my old school, I remember how simple life was. During the summertime, the school property was the most frequented place for leisure. Many children who abhor the endless drone of school days seem to draw near to empty schools with the utmost diffidence, as though they were approaching a dormant beast that could wake at any moment, smelling its favourite prey. This feeling never seemed to be instilled in anyone visiting my school in the summer; it is difficult to fear a building that is dwarfed by the open fields and groves of trees that surround it.
Summers brought long afternoons where we would bike over to the playground having nothing better to do than to tear around the park playing tag, or compete to see who could jump the farthest off the swings. In the evenings, men of the community would come to play baseball on the other side of the school yard. The metallic squeaks of the swings would occasionally be swallowed by the reverberations of aluminum or wood making contact with the baseball. Raucous male shouts and cheers would drift faintly to our ears as we would chuckle and think,
home run. Thus the lazy summer days would draw out as life settled into a mellow groove and time stood still. How great it was when my only worries were that my parents would find out that I had gone barefoot in the sand despite their warnings about being cut by glass.
I remember how winters were cold and winters were long. But we were young and didn't have grown-up cares. The more snow, the better the sledding, the stronger the snow forts, the taller the snowmen. Ice storms in March were a thing of beauty covering the blanket of snow in a brilliant sheen and filling the trees with diamonds.
Somewhere along the line, life became complicated. Sometimes it's nice to be reminded that it wasn't always so.
That is how it was a few weeks back when I took a trip to Ottawa. There were many impressive ice and snow sculptures of varying sizes to see, maple syrup to be bought, and copious amounts of French music to be heard.
It was nice to put on some skates and make my way down the Rideau canal for the first time in many years, and the first time ever doing all 7km one way and then back again.
It was so cold and crowded, but a Beavertale and a hot apple cider seems to have a way of making everything alright again.
And of course, no trip to Ottawa could have been complete without an evening of festing with my brothers. At some point during the night, I became a Guitar Hero. I'm such a nerd - how embarrassing!
