Arriving in Ottawa

It wasn't until I stood in the Ottawa airport watching some guy take all the red suitcases off the carousel, and then replace them when he realized they weren't his, that I was hit by the realization that I have started my journey. Even the 3 hour stopover in Calgary hadn't really sunk in, probably because I was moping over my aching gums.

But when I got off the plane in Ottawa and saw the bilingual signs in the airport, I started to feel the familiarity of the place which only grew as the taxi drove me down the airport connector and onto Bronson Avenue. Bronson Avenue! And there! There is Carleton University! The #1 bus, wasn't it, that went from Carleton up to Bank Street and down all the way to the Parliament buildings and then further still into Vanier? And we're turning onto...oh, it's the entrance to Colonel By Drive. And there is the canal, where I skated, and the apartment building where Flora McDonald used to live.

The memories come in unexpected fragments, and as they pop in I wonder if they are truly memories or if they are memories of dreams. Yes, that's it. I have had dreams all these years, dreams I have not remembered until now, dreams that take place in all these Ottawa locations. Because I haven't been able to keep active memories of Ottawa alive in my life. I mean, who has time to remember everything in their past, so I assume that's what my dream life is designed for: to sift through, update, review, re-file all those memories so that they remain in some form.

But to what purpose? To serve as scaffolding for the present, a kind of structure upon which to attach new memories?

I can't say that the memories are intense, or loaded with emotion, positive or negative. I have a mostly neutral reaction to seeing the places. I see a street corner and remember an orange cat I once had who was kidnapped by a man who lived alone in a second floor room in a boarding house across the alley from where I was living. The neighbourhood kids came and told me where Andy was, and then offered to steal him back for me. I agreed, and within hours Andy was sitting in my kitchen asking for more cat food.

Now I'm sitting in my B&B room, not far from the University of Ottawa. The room is small, maple floors, yellow trim on the walls, a green and yellow flower-decorated quilted bedspread on the bed, with baby blue satin pillows. There is a sink in the corner, and a television installed on a retractable arm over by the window. On the wall behind me is a framed print of a boy walking through deep snow, pulling his sled and accompanied by a tri-colour collie. Behind them are several dairy cows on the other side of a page wire fence. The snow is falling thickly.

I am grateful that I have wireless internet in this room.