Dear Ottawa,
You haven’t changed much since last year, with the humidity accompanying the summer flowers. Politicians and dignitaries still walk the grand halls of power, museums and relics of the past continue to wait for visits from curious eyes, and people keep living and dying, making fortunes on your city streets. But I am different, so please let me tell you what lessons I have learned while you were away.

(In)certainity?
The English language is a flawed, funny language with as many exceptions as there are rules. For example, why are some words negated with “un” while others with “in” such as uncertainty and certainty versus indirect and direct? Maybe because “incertainty” would mean that you are “in certainty”?

Uncertainty is beautiful thing; it forces us to accept and to live each day not knowing, seeing only the bit of light that God shines to guide and light our paths - not a step more, but also not a step less in the direction of His choosing. Uncertainty is a beautiful thing, but not when you try to force her to be or to do something for which she is not ready. There are times this year, in the midst of the numerous changes with grad school applications and future thinking, where I did just that, grasp at what I could not yet know. In these moments, I truly felt like a blind person without a guide, desperately groping for something – anything – to end up with nothing but perpetuate further desperation and heavier doses of self-afflicted pain. Today, as I sit with nothing more than a plane e-ticket back to Vancouver September 1, I choose to learn the lesson, and let uncertainty pursue its course.

SELfiSh – selfLESS
Did you ever notice how the word ‘less’ is in both the words selfish and its antonym, selfless – the difference lies in the placement of the letters L-E-S-S. Whereas “less” is grouped together nicely as the antecedent in selfless, as if an act of proclamation to the world at its meaning, “less” is harder to find in selfish, because the focus is on “self.” The meaning of the words tells a similar story don’t they? Selfish people talk a lot about themselves, and make their troubles and joys loud and clear to all who can hear, while selfless people are often not heard at all, and are given less due than they deserve.

It is sickening how many conversations have ended with my own self condemnation: I am selfish. It is even more sickening considering how these conversations should not keep reoccurring, because their reoccurrence only loudly attests to the failures to resolve the ugliness and the pain I hide behind such phrases and admissions. The truth is, while a part deep deep inside me longs to live the life, I mean, really live, unfettered by all earthly and material worries (so that includes all possible degrees, gross income, and loving relationships I would incur in this life) - another part wouldn’t mind if the plans in my head worked out, because I think my plans are pretty good. Right?

I take careful notice of my appearance for work, particularly when I worked in parliament last year. It was quite fun at first, dressing up, but it became poisonous when I felt naked without my mask on, as if my mask was the ultimate source of my confidence and value as a human being. In contrast, some of the best times, the best conversations I have had with others were when I was dirty and disshelved, in jeans and t-shirt, in tears and rain, most often a mix of it all. I am not saying people who dress up are fake or ugly, but do you notice how the people with that most beautiful glow, the sparkle in the eye that glittery eye shadow fails to capture, aren’t on magazine covers? Most likely, not wearing make-up? Less is more. Isn’t that the first rule of make-up, and doesn’t that apply in life as well? Less layers, no layers, is more.

Love - EVOLution – rEVOLution
My name is a palindrome, so since I was a kid I would automatically spell words backwards in my mind to see if it one, if it is another palindrome such as racecar, or two, if it spells out anything interesting such as noside. Love backwards spells evol, which leads to the verb evolve, and taken further to nouns, evolution or revolution if we dare. Love evolves doesn’t it? From family love to first loves, from reciprocal love to unconditional love, our understanding of love evolves as the people and the very circumstances in our lives shape and test us. With each moment, our understanding grows or shrinks. Maybe sometimes it is okay to shrink (despite our Enlightenment teaching of linear progress), and like the motions of our muscles when we work out, it has to be broken first in order to build up again stronger. I also mentioned revolution, but I am thinking of it from the origin of the word, revolution as an astronomical term for an object going around another object in a complete circular path, like the earth around the sun. Not the banners and protest rally image. But if you think about it, the two usages of the word are really the same. Do you notice how many revolutions, even if they would never admit, ultimately cry out for the restoration of past ideals and the fulfillment of broken promises? We want to get back at something that has been lost, corrupted, and tainted by a present world order, a particular regime, or a person, so it is like coming back full circle. Sometimes love is a revolution.

This is my first serious relationship, and the first time I have committed to love a person that way for so long (a year Tuesday). We are well past the roses and chocolates, and at times it feels like all we’ve got is heart ammunition. I reread some journal entries from this time last year, and a part of me wishes we were back where we were at a year ago. But Ottawa is different today, because I am different. Do you know that the path traveled by the earth around the sun, our revolutions (that marks our calendar years) are not exactly the same every time? It would be if the only two objects in space were the sun and the earth – but we are not the only objects in the universe (that would be pretty boring don’t you think?). And it’s like that, if we were the only two people on earth, than maybe things would be the same always. But it isn’t like that, just as the gravity of other planets, the other shining stars and distant galaxies push and pull on the earth during its revolutions around the sun, vying for attention, so do other people and circumstances in life, push and pull on our relationship. Yet the beautiful, though simple thing about revolutions is that they continue to happen, for there is a greater force between the sun and the earth than those who try to pull it apart. I hope, nay, I pray, that there is a greater force here too.

Ottawa, I don’t know what will happen in these three months and I will stop counting the days. I am going to live. Yesterday is past, tomorrow is yet to come, all we have is today, that’s why it is called the present.