Though I hardly get to it enough, the Central Experimental Farm is one of my favourite places in Ottawa. I was today years old when I discovered that it is in fact called the Central Experimental Farm, and not simply The Experimental Farm.

It’s here that they do all of the experiments on…stuff. Agriculture? Someone help me out; I am a dummy. I just like the pretty flowers and I hear there’s animals inside somewhere…

One of the only videos remaining from my childhood is of my family and I at the Central Experimental Farm (CEF). I was running around the trees, fresh to Canada, a happy immigrant child in a brown dress to just below my knees, and white, red, and brown stripped socks. In brown sandals.

I appear both happy and stunned, likely because I am dressed like a clown.

Did I mention the barrettes? How about the fact that I apparently wouldn’t stop staring at a couple frolicking in public? Because we had come from Libya where folks don’t frolic, not even in private. I was apparently quite enthralled, ever the voyeur.

My parents were happy. It is a rare and lovely memory of us all three together. My mother in particular, she was (and remains) stunning, and glowing in this happiness.

This memory, it’s both the reason for my visits to the CEF, as equally as it is the reason that I avoid it. I’m not so sure it’s any kind of helpful to stick to any one memory for any period of time when everything is so transient. I think…I think that the older I get, the more I am inclined to believing that it is best to simply not. About everything.

Especially in light of the suggestion that I recently received regarding Heaven – that we don’t see our most precious, except for possibly our spouse. We don’t see our parents, our children, our best friends. I honestly don’t know wtf this is or how it can possibly be. Frankly, and upon great reflection, I believe that this suggestion is complete bullshit and antithetical to the very meaning of ‘Heaven’. But more on this when I have pulled my ideas together and I am not so buried in verbs and prepositions.

(To my Muslim fam, I invite you to inbox me your thoughts on this matter, and let me know whether you believe it to be a literal truth, or think it is a human misunderstanding of text(s).)

Today, I am grateful for:
1. The feeling of my towel scrubbing the night from my face each morning. I derive so much satisfaction from this morning wash! (More than any else during the rest of the day.)
2. My day’s very first sip of coffee.
3. Staples 5 mm correction tape. I don’t know what kind of magic patent they have, but this correction tape is perfect. All others pale in comparison, by going off track, getting wonky, snagging, skipping, and ripping the paper. Honestly, this thing, if it were a human, it would be the perfect human. I mean, just look at the difference –

Ottawa | Day 292 | September 18, 2019

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