Ottawa is my home

My city got attacked today. It seems so dramatic a thing to write but it’s hard to say it any other way.

A gunman attacked a solider on sentry duty at the National War Memorial then stormed Parliament Hill. These are two of the most iconic locations in my city.

I’m lucky, I guess, in that I work in the far west end of the city — a dozen kilometres or more from today’s chaos. My wife was at our home even further west than that. My daughter’s school went into a light sort of lockdown but the threat was 30 km away from her. None of us were ever in danger.

But make no mistake, this felt as personal. Just yesterday I was downtown, mere metres from where the first shots were fired. Friends went on lock down in their offices. Familiar locations and familiar faces filled the news as we wondered what was happening and what was going to happen next.

Ottawa is a weird place, sometimes. So many people, myself included, come from somewhere else that it’s tempting to assume that there aren’t a lot of people who feel like Ottawa is truly home.

But as many others have written today, Ottawa is a small town masquerading as a large city. People here are nice. We’re friendly. We’re a town of politicians and bureaucrats, yes, but we’re also a town of artists and writers and students and entrepreneurs and developers. We may not be as famous or as boisterous as other Canadian cities but deep down most of us do have an understated sort of pride in the city we call home.

I’ve seen people tweeting things like #OttawaStrong #StayStrong613 and it’s still overwhelmingly surreal. In part, of course, because you never really expect to see this sort of thing happening here (though we should, really, we’re a national capital) but also because it seems … swaggerish. Bold. It’s the sort of attitude you associate with Boston or New York. Toronto, maybe. Not Ottawa.

But one would be wrong to assume a lack of outward bravado is indicative of a lack of inward resolve. People are already talking about “retaking” Parliament with a peaceful, unarmed vigil. People are tweeting that just outside the locked-down area the pubs are full of people keeping calm and carrying on.

We’ll mourn the fallen and we’ll reflect on how we conduct business around the Hill but we won’t be intimidated by a cowardly act of senseless violence.

Ottawa is a weird town. But Ottawa is our town.