6 May 2025 – Today our Prime Minister met with the President of that giant neighbour to the south, an event that gives us Canadians much material for reflection.

For example, we reflect upon the fact that our Prime Minister had to — yet again — explain that Canada is an independent and sovereign country.

Sigh.

Fortunately, this bright sunny day gives me other, happier, and less surreal, objects for reflection. In fact, the sunshine causes the reflection to be done for me. I don’t even have to think. All I have to do is look.

I am in an alley just west of Main Street, between 7th and 6th avenues, where the brightly painted west wall, a remnant of the 2017 Mural Festival…

with the help of adjacent buildings and some H-frame hydro poles, throws bright reflections into every glass surface opposite.

For example, wall plus next-door building…

wall plus neighbour plus an H-frame…

blocks of mini-reflections above a parkade entrance, with equally strong light reflections on the laneway below…

even the parkade door itself! and…

and even the corner of a decidedly uninspired building, having itself a dance with that bit of H-frame.

Cheered and amused, I walk on down to False Creek and a lunch date with friends.

Right here, in this one downtown alley in one city in one province in our independent, sovereign country.

🇨🇦🦫🇨🇦