Warning: The following tangents will likely bore you to tears...
Walking creates a new city. When you're driving, or even taking the bus, the city you inhabit flies by. The smells are ignored, the bugs become annoying pastes on the windshield rather than points on intrigue, and the worldview experienced is so much more limited when compared with walking. On Saturday, I spent a couple hours walking around my neighbourhood, met K for lunch on her lunch break at work, and carried out some errands that I needed to take care of. And I walked. And the whole time I was really struck by how completely different the world is when you walk. I had two people pull up and ask my for directions as they zipped down the street in their Honda Civic. I watched a man help his neighbour with his yardwork. I noticed the first bumblebees of the season trying to fit their bloated bodies into the bloom of the spring tulips. And I looked around the whole time, wondering where I was. Even though I'd driven down these streets hundreds of times. It gave me flashbacks when I was backpacking in Europe, and how strange London seemed above ground when I wasn't taking the Tube from destination to destination, or when I was almost roadkill for a tram line in Vienna. I always find it odd when you're a stranger in you home, even if it's not the case. Clarity peeks through from time to time... You never know a place until you've walked it's streets.
Thetis Lake.... K and I spent a few hours walking around upper and lower Thetis Lakes this afternoon. The smell of pine and crocus and foliage was thick, the sky was like a movie, the water was like glass and it was 17 degrees. Not bad for Vancouver Island in April! We had chicken salad sandwiches and the best potato salad I've even had (K's special recipes), did some people watching and enjoyed the sun. Then we spent an hour on our mountain bikes this evening just pedaling by the marina and down through our surrounding area, enjoying the fading sunlight. I met a few friends for a couple beers later, as they celebrated the end of their undergrads. I always wonder if a thing such as a "perfect day" exists.... this one came pretty close.
I think that this sort of journalistic forum is just a way for me to talk to myself... is that healthy? Meh... probably not, but I've never made any claims to my personal mental health.
1 comment:
I miss walking - now that I'm a commuter into Victoria I feel so insulated and isolated and lonely and all that as I make my way to school etc. I used to love my meanders to school and downtown and friends' houses - you're right, it's a whole other world.
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