This morning, fourteen years ago, I was making a final run, transporting boxes from my rented accommodations in Ottawa to my newly acquired condo. Crossing the Champlain Bridge (the old, narrow, traffic choked Champlain Bridge) I was struck by the splendor of the clear blue September sky, an incredibly bright day with not one cloud visible in that vast azure expanse. The time was 8:45 a.m.

The world changed on that day. I did not know this at the time. Few were aware of the pending changes. We remain blissfully unaware of the degree to which our contemporary turmoil is a direct outcome of the decisions made on that fateful day.

I have lived here now for fourteen years. The trees outside the front window have grown from spindly bean stalks that I looked down upon with concern, to mature trees whose crown rises well above eye level and blocks the hot morning sun from the windows. The vacant lot across the way is crowded with houses all of which are at least a decade old. The Champlain Bridge has been widened, and improved, but is once again traffic choked during morning and evening rush hours.

Colin is 14 years older. I am getting younger by the minute. If I realize any funding from my various pursuits, I want to go and visit him. It has been too long an interval since our last get together. Gargantua’s workforce has experienced reductions of over 100,000 in the same time period. Our group, which once numbered in excess of 1,600 people working round the clock, no longer exists. Our bilingual team was the last to be disbanded, our jobs moved to points unknown, scattered elsewhere in the world.

Today, I encountered a single red maple leaf lying across the hill track. Summer has gone past like a rocket, winter already hangs in the air. There is a keen sense of life as an overwhelming tumult of unceasing transition with the self positioned in the quiet eye of the ongoing hurricane of change.

Seize the present; trust tomorrow e’en as little as you may.

Carpe diem