*Traces of the tree. Shot on 35mm film. Summer 2020, Tkaronto.*

Preamble: I have been gravitating to a new way of writing recently, allowing my thoughts to flow onto paper with no predefined structure or prescribed narrative. This approach to writing feels especially embodied, immediate, and honest. I typed this piece into my notes app over the course of 30 minutes as I sat by a place that feels sacred, that represents my experiences with living, dying, renewal, cycles, and chrysalis. Here is that piece, presented with minimal edits from the time of writing. It includes mentions of death and grief, so please proceed with care.

June 18, 2021. 9:16 PM. Bickford Park, Tkaronto.

i went on a walk with no destination in mind, following where my feet take me, and ended up walking past the alley with all the butterfly murals and crossing the street to Bickford Park. i am sitting where the tree i visited on the day of her memorial used to stand, with my back turned to the young tree planted to replace it. when the tree was torn down it felt like the first day again, today it feels like the first day again, grief under a blue sky with pink wispy clouds, a half moon, a sharp heartbreak, pointed, a sudden rush of pain, like accidentally cutting my skin open and that moment of HEAT and then my brain’s pain alerts swiftly responding !!!!! i am, again, navigating grieving in the summer when the world around me is so vibrant, vivid, lavish, immediate, when the world survived a long winter, when those of us who are lucky enough to see another season eagerly venture back out into this markedly altered reality, when it feels like the world is ready to embrace me, when the days are long and night falls slowly, when my senses are heightened, when everything is heartbreakingly beautiful. i am grieving and the birds are bidding us farewell for the night, a stranger sings to themselves softly but loud enough for others to enjoy, the wind moving through the leaves is rhythmic like waves, i close my eyes and this humid night and the pseudo-waves transport me to the Mediterranean, a summer night in my childhood with the window open as i drift into sleep, a version of me who did not know grief, but who felt everything as intensely as i do today, who still loved life so fervently, as much as i still love life today, choose life, even as i sit on a reminder of death, absence, lack, void, i place my hand where the tree used to stand, i feel her energy, with me, by my side, my companion, my friend, i miss you so deeply and i am writing as my vision blurs, as the sharp pain of this old heartbreak sits in a lump in my throat, as my chest tightens, i miss you as strangers walk past and i wonder if they have felt this way before. when you died, a friend told me some people spend their lifetimes looking for what you and i had, and i believe it, our story is a great one, but now you’re gone and i am almost twenty-three and i don’t know what to do except for sit with these feelings and write and just keep on keep on keep on living and witnessing and growing and speaking to you through it all ◆

Based between Cairo, Toronto, and Abu Dhabi, Farida Rady is a writer and artist, focused primarily on film photography. Her interests include the politics of space, memory and identity, documentation, urbanism, and archival processes. Farida explores these interests within the spectrum of scholarly and creative processes. Find her online on Instagram, or on a long walk in real life.