On days like this, it’s better to wear light clothing, and throw on a hooded windbreaker. The rain outside is just a drizzle, so it’s comfortably cool. Pay no attention to the hydraulic hiss of the windshield wipers, or you won’t be able to help hearing them through the quiet parts of every song. Window seats are prime. There are fewer distractions from people walking down the aisle.
The 95 goes from one end of the city to the other, straight through the heart of Ottawa. Every stop is a memory. Old haunts. Past lives.
Here was your first apartment. Sometimes you’d find Christie waiting for you here on the benches between classes. How long ago those days seem, how immature and relatively innocent. The next two stops are on the edge of the university campus, four years of scattered truancy. Two stops later is where you use to buy a medium caramel corretto every morning after an exhausting night with Louise. Your old government office is another two on. The concrete building looks so foreign now, and you wonder if the same people are still inside. Another few stops is your last apartment, before buying the house, the end of bus rides home every day.
Music never meant so much.
You pass by construction sites, finished buildings, see the evolution of the city.
Six years of experience, six years of shifting, ever-changing anima.
Six years passed.
Six years lived.
Six years grown.
Hi Jeff. I stumbled onto your blog during a state of extreme boredom. Your beautiful skill with words has engaged me completely, although my old eyes are hurting from trying to read the small print. I am so intrigued that, after reading your current entries, I clicked on Sept 02 and have just met Dolly. I need to attend to my real life right now but I hope to return to read more if that is ok? When I said old, I meant it. I have a few decades on you so if my reading your journal cripes you out just let me know and I’ll respect your decision.
Anni (from Alberta)
Wow, Jeff. That was powerful. It kind of knocked the wind out of me for a minute.. quite a thought provoking post. Now I want to dig around these archives and read about your old flames!
Because lord knows I’m not getting any. My college years are not the conventional way. It’s like a big black cloud hanging over me and I feel unentitled to nurture a relationship while the academic part of my life is still hanging in the balance.
Thanks for dropping by my little corner.
Wow, that was very powerfully written, well done.
Anni: I don’t mind anyone reading my blog. The only exception is any person whom I’ve specifically told never to talk to me again. I’ve been considering a second CSS skin with a larger type, along with a few other projects, but unfortunately it’ll be a while before I have time to work on them.
momof2: Sometimes, I still occasionally talk about my old flames. It makes me wonder if anyone reading still thinks I’m not over them. Almost all memories are good, even if the experiences didn’t end well. There’s always something to be gained.
Renegade Blogger: Thanks.
nice picture.. sigh, i miss ottawa. and yeah, youre absoluetly right about every stop having different memories
Sikander, I guess I should have figured from all the pictures on your blog, but I didn’t realize that you weren’t in Ottawa anymore. Where are you now? Just travelling?
I know, I wonder if my old flames read my stuff and make assumptions that I’m still hanging on. It feels good to hash it all out through writing, though. So I don’t care what they think.
I share your attitude in believing that there is always something to be gained from past relationships. Even through situations that were wrong for you, you learn.
I watched Cocktail last night. I know, it’s total cornball. But once again I held my breath when Tom Cruise said the line…
“Everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t end.”
i moved to toronto august of last year after finishing at Carleton. my friends say i’m crazy but i would love to move back to ottawa. maybe next year. depends on work of course.. if i find something worthwhile in ottawa ill quit here and move
by toronto i meant mississauga (which is so residential and boring). living in downtown toronto would’ve been fun