tranquility in the urban jungle

Lately I have been walking around my neighbourhood. And beyond. Usually at dusk. Or dawn. Those are great times of day, and not only because one avoids the smog warnings of midday. I usually walk east on a residential street a block north of the Danforth--which won't mean anything to those of you who don't know Toronto. But the Danforth is a main east-west street in Toronto--busy and bustling with cars and commerce.

What has amazed and calmed me during recent walks is that only one block away from the Danforth the streets I walk are peaceful. I am rarely passed by cars. I wave to the occasional dog-walker. Kids play in the school-yard playgrounds with their parents. People work in their gardens. In the morning many residents pass me on their way to the subway. I dare say, at least from an "outside" perspective, the neighbourhood is peaceful. I am overwhelmed by contentedness when I walk through it. This is one of the many things I have grown to love about this city: its residential areas. It is really rare for a city of 2 million+ to have dedicated residential areas so close to downtown--and, in fact, right in the heart of downtown you can find many side streets full of townhomes and duplexes and parks and gardens.

This city feels livable.

The more I explore this city, the more I love it. It has its heartbreaking areas too--like boystown, the powerplants on the waterfront, the financial district oozing with greed, the congested smog-producing web of highways, the spaces under bridges that too many call home--but these areas too give me a bigger heart for this city. My heart breaks for those who may never know the peace of the neighbourhoods a block from the Danforth and as I realize that the natural beauty of those neighbourhoods is threatened by the pollution we produce.