11 November 2026 – I know it is Remembrance Day and, as I set out, it is not yet 11:00 The day, the moment, are in my mind, but not as a forced theme for the walk. It is only as I walk, that the concept of “remembrance” begins to expand and dance in my mind.

At first, turning north off East 5th into the alley just west of Main, my self-challenge is to live up to Proust’s dictum: to bring “new eyes” to familiar pathways and so earn myself a voyage of discovery. My eyes therefore look into the reflection as I turn the corner, not the wall or the building.

But at the very next bend — off this N/S alley into an E/W alley — I’m in the world of remembrance. Not November-11 remembrance; personal remembrance. Yet, isn’t that a large component of how we view something? Along with whatever “new eyes” we can muster, our memories and attitudes also inform what lies before us.

So many categories of memory, in this one moment. Ahead, in the distance: acquired memory (thank you, Vancouver Heritage Foundation) of the vintage H-frame hydro poles still marching down the alley. Ahead, near my feet: personal memory of the recent rain that has this sewer cover still glistening. On my left: personal memory of this huge mural, painted on this wall during an early Vancouver Mural Festival. On my right: a new-build, with which I am only starting to form any connection.

I look into the new-build’s windows as I walk, and I am offered a connection.

If a black sheep staring soulfully into my eyes counts as connection… (He presumably counts as one of the heads in Togetherheads, the event and pop-up space whose motto is: “More heads are better than two.”

Remembrance plays no part in what stops me next, just new-eyes delight in the impudence and slender perfection of this weed.

No remembrance, either, at West 2nd & Ontario, though there should be, because I’ve walked past this corner many, many times.

But isn’t that the way? We forget what used to be. Remembrance disappears; anticipation takes over.

A new-eyes moment, as I walk alongside the Pollinator Meadow, still on Ontario, north of West 1st. I make myself really pay attention.

Lovely ragged fertile Meadow; happy walkers/cyclists; gleaming Science World; and beyond that, the mountains.

Still in the moment, as I turn east on a cut-through to Quebec Street: I admire the railway motif on the bench, appropriate to the railway-heavy industrial history of this area…

and also the maple mosaic beneath my feet, brilliant with rain and ephemeral with the season.

Then, remembrance. Where I don’t expect it, and not my own.

I am puzzled by this apparently incongruous collection of sodden flowers and notes in front of a relatively new and decidedly upscale condo tower near False Creek. Would not the concierge clear away such displays, the moment they appear?

I lean in, read the notes.

Ahhh.

I am sombre with this, until a toddler in pink rubber boots jumps me out of it. My photo does not catch her in action, it catches her immediately after, as laughing parents tug her away.

What could be more intoxicating? Finally mastery over your own two feet, waterproof boots, and a puddle to jump in. Repeatedly.

I walk on with a smile, remembering my own puddle-stomping days. (Not all of them as a toddler.)

Behind the children’s playground in the curved end of False Creek, as I look across the water… Remembrance.

Cirque du Soleil is back, its blue-&-white tent city filling its accustomed space. And I remember.

I remember all those decades ago, the opening performance for what was then still a one-canvas-tent operation, on the shores of Toronto Harbour, in what was perhaps (perhaps) the company’s first tour outside Québec.

Two inukshuks, as I curve westward along False Creek’s north shore. I allow myself memories of the real thing, in the years when I spent time in Arctic hamlets, and then snap myself back to right-now.

Also to the gentleman with a telephoto lens on his camera, who, as he lowers it, turns to me, points to the sky, and says: “That’s the military plane, circling, timing itself. It’s almost 11 a.m. In the ceremony in Victory Square, there will then be two minutes of silence. At 11:02, this plane will break that silence with a fly-past tribute.” He nods to me, explains he has to get himself to the Square in time for the fly-past, and sets off.

Just past 11 a.m., I hear a roar and look up.

There goes the plane.

Overhead banners, one after another, as I walk back south across the Cambie Bridge.

I put away my camera. That’s it. This image will close my Remembrance Day post.

Then, passing under bridge pillars off the south end, I see this, and take out the camera once more.

Two guys are larking about in high good humour, having themselves a game of table tennis on one of the tables provided by the City, framed by two of the latest art installations in this space, also sponsored by the City, all of it in peace and safety and a great sense of normalcy.

“Lest We Forget,” say the banners. But let us, please, remember in a useful way. I think it our duty — and our great liberating opportunity — not to paralyze ourselves in toxic memory of past evil, but instead to transmute that memory for constructive purposes. Learn its lessons, and draw from it the wisdom, energy and motivation to do better in future.

So that, everywhere, toddlers can jump in puddles, and adults can play laughing games. Live ordinary lives. In peace and safety.