The places we circle above and never land

unfinished letter #5

Our 8th grader, D, did a week-long business program at Carleton University back in April. He came home everyday with a new discovery: Carleton’s library! Carleton’s food court! Carleton’s quad! The boy was ready to skip high school and go straight to uni.

The campus is tree-lined, picturesque, and easy to get lost in. Or maybe I just think that because I didn’t spend enough time there. The University of Ottawa, where I studied, was twenty minutes away in the heart of downtown Ottawa. What we lost in trees, we made up for in rapid transit stops and nearby shopping malls.

My father came to Canada from Egypt in the fall of 1973 to start his PhD at Carleton. His older brother was living in Toronto. Uncle Hamdi met Baba at the airport, took one look at the “winter jacket” he had arrived in, and took him shopping.