5 March 2026 – Isn’t “angularities” a wonderful word? All knobbly, just like the shapes it describes.

Vocabulary is not in mind, as I set out, though light certainly is. We had a prediction of rain; we received sunshine, and I revised plans accordingly — a long, happy walk to the noon-hour Dance Centre performance, not a quick dash to a rain-splattered bus.

My route will take me down to False Creek, then west along its north shore to Richards or Granville before angling north into town.

Light! After days of drizzle. Blazing sky above the new-build just off Main at East 5th.

Then my eye tumbles down the building, to land on those shadows streaking across the pavement.

I’m set. I have my imprint. Never mind blazing sky: I want the angularities of light and shadow, as they dance with every building they meet.

Into the N/S alley between Main & Quebec streets, and it’s dance-time.

Standing at the intersection of this alley with the E/W alley between 5th & 4th avenues, I am as goggle-eyed…

as this vintage mural on the wall beside me.

Horizontal shadows running along that flowered wall to the north…

vertical light bursting through shadows, right at the corner…

shadowed walls both sides of the E/W alley, but look how those flowers pop with colour, even so…

long rays of light across the shadowed intersection with East 4th…

and a whole sequence of shadows to pull me on north, from the puddle just to my right, down the muted wall to the blocky rectangle at the intersection, and on across the street into that well of darkness beyond.

Bubbling pools among the condo towers, N/W of East 1st and Quebec…

where light & dark translate to marine tones of green & blue.

An old friend, at Science World: the Tower of Bauble. But this time I notice the shadows more than the mechanisms…

the way a shadow-shaft enters from below and emerges on the right in an arc of colours.

Shadows, I now realize, can be a lot more interesting than the objects that create them. Boring-old, routine-old, perfectly ordinary fencing along the edge of Creekside Park…

is a lot more intriguing when thrown as Mondrian-esque patterns on grass & concrete.

Similarly, shadows of flags at the Plaza of Nations ferry dock…

are much more enjoyable than the shamefully faded real flags above our heads.

I may be besotted with angularities, but I’m willing to make exceptions.

For example, for this curve encircling a False Creek viewing bench in Coopers’ Park.

Back to the angular:

the entrance to an underground garage at the foot of Drake Street.

Then, waiting for the construction worker’s nod at Drake & Richards, heavily cordoned for the delicate crane operation taking place between existing towers, I take a picture that has no relationship at all to light & shadow. (Though it has angularities a-plenty.)

It’s just very much of the moment, and I am suitably awe-struck at the sight of that worker in the top-level cage being positioned by the crane.

Camera tucked away after that: time to step smartly and get myself to Dance Centre.

Where, to my complete surprise, light, shadow and angularities all reappear.

The stage setting is entirely in the play of light and shadow, and the Ne.Sans Opera & Dance performers are accompanied by, first, the music of Philip Glass and, second, the Cello Suites of J.S. Bach.

Glass, Bach and contemporary dance! I think they fit perfectly, each with each other, and I then try to puzzle out why. Perhaps because the word “angularity” is already in my head, I add an adjective, and I am satisfied. “Flowing angularity.” That’s it. The angularity of the exquisite precision of every note, both composers; the angularity of the exquisite precision of every gesture, all three dancers — but also the flow of the music, the flow of the dance.

Then I think about my walk, about its angularities, and I add “flowing” to that experience as well.

The flow of light particles; the flow of the wind; the flow of time; the flow of shadows moving with time to new angles and positions; the flow of my time, my steps, my thoughts; the flow from that walk to this post.

Each instant its own angle, dancing in a constant flow.