How to Have a Perfect Ottawa Summer
A few weeks ago I saw that the Instagram page Ottawaisms was building a zine all about summer in the city. “How great!” I thought, and clearly others thought so too because several people sent me the submission info.
Yesterday I finally got around to thinking about one element of a perfect Ottawa summer. As I waited for my laundry in the Salt Spring Island Laundr-O-Mat, I found myself in a flow and wrote almost four pages on the subject.
No surprise to anyone that I had something to say about an Ottawa summer.
However, this morning as I reviewed Ottawaisms’ actual ask, and realized they weren’t exactly looking for long digressions. More like one sentence descriptions based on a series of prompts. Silly me. That’s what I get for not reading the instructions.
But I like my little essay so I’m sharing it with you here.
If you’re looking for a perfect summer activity in Ottawa, may I recommend the following:
After scarfing down shish kabobs and rice for dinner, head to your family home’s garage and take out your bike. Take your helmet too, and put it on, but as soon as you’re out of view take it off and dangle it on your left handlebar for the duration of your experience.
NOTE: This activity is best enjoyed at 12 years old and living in Greenboro, a neighbourhood in South Ottawa with five kilometres of pathways and a proliferation of cut-throughs that ripple through the area’s crescents as though the neighbourhood was one of those toy maze games that used to come with Happy Meals ™, welcoming you to an adventure every warm night from May to September. Maybe right after school you called a friend to see if they would go biking with you. But if you didn’t, don’t worry. Your adventure will still be worthwhile.
In fact, sometimes biking alone gives you a quiet thrill, because now you don’t have to seek consensus on a route or destination. You don’t need to speak to anyone, only flow through your corner of the city like the robins you hear chortling along the path, obeying no time-keeper but the sun that clings to your already browning arms.
Once on the path behind Greenboro and Fireside crescents, dart like a dragonfly hunting for prey between families with their strollers and the teasing and shoving boys who could be your age but whom you don’t recognize—don’t try. There’s no need to look at them or feel intimidated by them, because you are flying too fast to be acknowledged.
NOTE: It is best to do this activity in the past, when you don’t have a cellphone, nor an iPod, nor any ID worth carrying with you. It is ideal if, by this point in your short life, you haven’t not experienced any better kind of freedom. Pedal aggressively; take curves along the path hard and fast, but with the grace of a figure skater who knows their edges like the back of their hand. Cross Pike street, and take a detour past your elementary school. Scoot around Winterwood Park along the dirt track around the viridescent soccer field and sniff the crabapple trees that edge Johnston Road now in full bloom.
Return to your previous route, and at Huntersfield Drive stand up off your seat to feel the willow fronds brush against your face like kind-hearted aunts admiring how much you’ve grown.
NOTE: If you prefer lilacs to crabapple flowers turn right at Greenboro Park and then left along a canopy-covered path lined with lilac trees, ready and waiting to be imbibed. If you prefer honeysuckle, keep to your route and cross Conroy Road and Blohm Drive. There is honeysuckle to be found in Elizabeth Manley park if you keep. your eyes open. By the time you cross Conroy, your face should feel chalky with dried sweat. Your heart should be thrumming at a pleasant and bracing pace. Your cheeks should be red with sun and exertion.
Slow down now. Elizabeth Manley Park has many diversions. To your left, there will be a raucous game of basketball and the joyful shrieks of toddlers on the playground slide. Tree pollen will be dancing in the twilight, swirling around many heads, disrupted in their casual waft by other cyclists.
If there is a boy’s soccer game going on to your right, drift along the path and notice a boy you want to notice you—just a flick of the eyes when play is paused. That sweet tinge of recognition, as light as a passing cloud of mayflies is all you need. Buoyed, tear off again with renewed energy. Then go and go and go until you reach Hawthorne Road, the end of the paths, and it’s time to turn around.
If you’re not ready to end the evening, meander down some unfamiliar streets, knowing that they won’t feel as safe as the path, because here you can be caught, like a butterfly in a net, by parents of friends, or friends themselves, and by now you are enmeshed in a dazzling daydream and you don’t want to talk to anyone. Breathe in the lingering notes of barbecue and fresh cut grass; admire the passing gardens, almost in full bloom but not yet bursting; stare up at the sky in its magnificent evening gown of blue and orange and pink.
Bike slowly back home. Feel the soreness of your thighs and dryness of your throat. Shiver happily in the pleasant night air. Tell no one what you saw or where you’ve been. This was just for you.
NOTE: for maximum enjoyment of this activity, repeat every night in endless variations, until the summer of childhood comes to an inescapable end.