Mondays are just young Fridays

The sun is just coming up, the weather is especially pleasant for this time of the year and the 10-day forecast indicates it will stay that way for quite some time.

Not a drop of rain is expected for the foreseeable future and these summer-like temperatures, even through the nights, will continue.

There are better days ahead.

My morning coffee is bold and sweet — sort of like me — and, for the most part, my schedule is clear enough to allow me to take advantage of where I am. It’s a good place to be.

I have a few things I need to do but, more so, I have a lot of things I want to do. I hope this mindful mood will allow me to get them done.

Optimism is a wonderful thing, and it is easily obtained if you permit yourself to believe it is possible.

09/16/2024 j.g.l.

we can’t remember

We won’t admit
we share the pain.
We tell ourselves
again and again
we are different.
We don’t know
what anyone feels,
or how anyone
deals with this now.
We can’t remember.
We don’t know
how to behave
like we used to.

cloud songs

Days, weeks, then months

and years drift by.

Not always noticeable, or even

memorable, the time behind us

simply accumulates. All in all,

the sum of its parts leads to

a life well-lived, if you take

a moment to notice.

09/10/2024 j.g.l.

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the essence of the neighbourhood

Posted on July 30, 2024 by j.g.lewis Leave a comment

I took my camera out for a walk yesterday, I felt it was time.

For the past couple of months, I have been focused (excuse the pun) on other aspects of art, refamiliarizing myself with my paintbox and attempting to capture my world in a different sort of way. I’ve been enjoying, even benefitting, from the change.

Creating any form of art is not only how you fill your time, but also how you fill your mind.

The camera has been a constant companion of mine for a good five decades, both personally and professionally. Photography, always, has been my preferred art form. Photojournalism has long been a passion more than a profession.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been attempting to make photographs that do not look like they were taken for me. I might be the only one who recognizes it, but after a lengthy tenure in the newspaper world you find yourself relying — perhaps subconsciously or by habit — on certain angles, lenses and depths of field that become overly familiar when you see what’s going on through the viewfinder. A camera lens can actually limit your perspective.

Yesterday I set out to make a serious attempt to capture what summer can be like in the concrete confines of Toronto for no other reason than it is summer, I am in the city, and I had my camera with me. How serious is that?

My journal entry earlier in the day explained my intentions: I’ve not spent a lot of time looking through the lens lately, and today just seems like it would be, or could be, a beneficial way for doing exactly that.

Ending up on Spadina Ave., caught up in the congestion that has become downtown Toronto, I continued along the path to Chinatown and its vibrant street-front retail scene where you can buy pretty much anything off or along the sidewalk: produce, gemstones, trinkets, shoes, socks, and sundries.

For no other reason than being there, other than wanting or needing to spend time with my camera, I set out to study the essence of the neighbourhood a little closer.

What I see through my lens is only a small portion of the world around me, but yesterday that was enough.