A man walking

 

Zen City Wander

For the first time in a long time I had an entire day without an agenda, office work, or a to-do list to accomplish. So I went for a Saturday city Zen-wander today. Since I was a kid, I have loved just stepping out my door, looking up at the sky, smelling the air, and picking a destination based on instinct and curiosity alone. I'll match my mood with a particular street, a particular patch of neighbourhoods or back alleys. Today, the sun was out and a strange misty fog hung around the horizon, wrapping the city skyscrapers in smoke. And because winter is near, the sun is low in the sky and it softly lights the fronts of stores and homes and faces that I pass. Everything seems to glow. Bits of metal and glass reflect perfectly into my eyes.

I walked down Palmerston, east along College Street, down Bathurst and into the heart of Kensington Market where shoppers were out shopping, the crazies were out being crazy, and hungover punks drank coffee. I have the same feeling when I am walking through the forest, each turn; each little store I poke into seems to give the walk its won little theme.

And I have to admit, the whole time I was a little stressed out. I am so used to keeping time, of getting things done, I really had trouble doing something that is ‘non-productive.’ Thankfully, I sat down with a coffee and a book and told myself to shut up and let the world move around me for once.

Look Up!

You can walk through a forest for hours, or through a city for hours. And even if you have walked the same hundred steps, for a hundred days in a row, the thing to remember is: all you have to do is shift your perspective and you get the same old thing as if you've never seen it before!

Now Close the Windows

My life has been busy with work, office work, these last few weeks. I sit behind a massive glass window overlooking the city. I have little to report or think about, I have my favourite Robert Frost poem to think about once in a while.


Now Close the Windows
By Robert Frost

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

It will be long ere the marshes resume,
I will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.