29 March 2025 – I’m still pursuing light, as a resource for coping with darkness. This time, not physical light, but emotional — small things I notice along the way that encourage, impress or just plain amuse me.

Truly small, truly everyday. That’s what I like most about them.

For example, the City’s network of bike lanes…

this one veering past a corner cafe’s turquoise “tiny free library” over there by the flower bed.

I check it out. At the top, the slogan “freely take, freely give, for the joy of sharing”; at the bottom, a bin marked “free dog toys/balls.” I do take a book (one of Reginald Hill’s old Dalziel & Pascoe series), knowing I’l be dropping it off again, one of these days.

Next corner over, a young woman with skis on her shoulder.

Still ski season at altitude — and available by public transit, all the way from downtown Vancouver. She’s not dressed for skiing today, but she could do it, if she wanted to.

Meanwhile, here at sea level…

the forsythia is in full bloom.

Skis and spring blossoms, all at the same time!

Two more blocks, and I’m startled to a full stop by this front gate notice.

Arguably this speaks to darkness, not light, in that it’s about bullying. On the other hand, it’s also all about defiance, and I like the thought of Old Wrinklies speaking up. (Being one myself.)

Another block or so, and a passing teenage girl, noticing my fixed attention, tracks my gaze with her own. We then wag heads at each other in mutual admiration…

for the preening window-framed cat. Feline living art.

More frames, more art, down by Cambie Street, where the fence around subway project construction is a display of an elementary school project.

Here’s my favourite, this child’s joke about the station due to be built at this very corner.

Across Broadway, north toward the water, under the Cambie Bridge ramps as I make my way to the False Creek Seawall. It’s mostly bleak under here, yes it is… but there’s always something.

This invitation, for example.

“Le 6 am club”? “Communauté de course”? Later, I look it up. In both official languages, the website invites early risers to get together once a week, at a given location, for a group run.

I am not about to join them but I am delighted the club exists.

As I am to see — even if only in peripheral remnants — the splendid 2014 mural painted by Emily Gray plus 100 volunteers all over the Spyglass Place ferry dock.

Murals fade, other pleasures endure. Sitting on a log just off Hinge Park, for example, and letting the world go by.

A small act of public kindness, down by the Olympic Village dock. Someone lost track of her pretty straw hat…

and someone else has hung it high, to increase the chance its owner can find it again.

Turning south from the water back towards city streets, I’m cheered by the energy of a pair of junior skateboarders, even more so since one of them is a kick-ass little girl.

And I’m even more, even-more cheered to see them screech to a halt, joined by a slightly older girl on her own two legs.

What stops them? A sign. It blares, “What’s This?”, and they’ve decided to find out. Little boy reads it aloud, older girl hugs younger girl.

Having educated themselves, they zoom off. I promptly move in, to see for myself.

The sign tells me, and I tell you: this is not a ditch. “This bioswale collects and cleans one-third of the rainwater that falls on streets, plazas and other public land in Olympic Village.” All part of Vancouver’s rain city strategy.

One last small delight.

Right in front of me, as I wait for traffic lights to change, just a block from home.

Happy socks!

I am not tra-la-la. My clenched belly shivers with the darkness, all around. But neuroscience tells us that darkness is not the whole story, and noticing the whole story will help. “When you tilt toward the good, you’re not denying or resisting the bad. You’re acknowledging the whole truth, all the mosaic tiles of life…” (Rick Hanson, PhD, Buddha’s Brain.)