I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
Month: June 2020
You never learn
details right away;
circumstances such
that it takes time
to explain who
and why someone
had to die.
Never is it pretty.
Someone
was killed last night
in the city.
06/09/2020 j.g.l.
Posted on June 8, 2020 by j.g.lewisLeave a comment
I had to get across town last week to pick up pencils. It was a gorgeous day and I was in no hurry, so I took my bike.
With no set route, and plenty of time, I zigzagged my way past a few points of interest, enjoyed this city’s expanded bicycle lanes, and stopped for coffee at a place I’d never been to.
You notice more on a bike.
On a bicycle you are right there, on the street; you are physically in control of your speed and more emotionally aware of your journey. It becomes an adventure. Much like Hemingway said, it is on a bicycle that you best learn a country.
While riding last Wednesday, I noticed a book and record store I had never seen before on a street I rarely use. Of course I went in. I found a particularly good Small Faces album in particularly good shape, and a Philip Glass recording I never realized I needed. She Said Boom had great prices, a deep selection, and well-organized bins. I also found a reason to ride back last Saturday, and I even took a different route.
The thing is, had I taken my car (or transit) I probably would not have noticed this store. Had I not been on my bike, the direction of my day would have taken a different path.
Who knows where I would have gone, how I would have arrived, or what I would have missed?
“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”
-Ernest Hemingway
06/08/2020 j.g.l.
Posted on June 7, 2020 by j.g.lewisLeave a comment
Look ahead; as a group, as
a society, as one world, what
do you see happening now,
or soon, or ever?
Can you see past whatever
privilege you have been
afforded to a place of unity,
and justice, and peace?
We all need to look in the
same direction.
Many of us have been looking
the wrong way for too long.
Look within.
06/07/2020 j.g.l.
