18 August 2026 – Every now and then, I challenge myself to live up to the Marcel Proust quote on my home page: “The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” What a concept! It is within our own power, to make the “old” endlessly new.
I decide to walk myself north along a very familiar stretch of Main Street — with new eyes. I start at 30th Avenue.
I am almost immediately rewarded with Kissing Crows.
I love everything about this sign: hand-lettered, informative, friendly, giving good reasons please to honour the request.
The cycle shop’s storefront, right next door, is very classy, very handsome…
but I still love the laneway notice best.
Slight deviation at East 28th. A few steps eastward, to enjoy the north/south contrast either side of the avenue.
On the north: a grotty old, environmentally-worthy old, recycling depot. Thank you, Joe.
On the south: the cool elegance of Mercurial Boutique Clothing, with its “curated” (I quote) collections.
I check a few price tags, out here on the sidewalk, and quietly slink away.
Back to Main Street!
All the happy combinations on offer, up and down Main: not just of what to buy/eat/do, but of choices within each category, often in the same location.
Here, for example, you can drink draft beer or, if you’d rather, Vietnamese coffee. (Or a fresh avocado smoothie.)
Happy customers inside, choosing their favourites; happy woman outside, scrolling her phone as she walks.
There is ramen…
there are records…
and there’s the reminder of a late-summer sale.
There are animals — to inform us, to amuse us, to loosen our purse strings.
The tattoo parlour skunk…
the fitness studio ants…
the welcoming Maneki Neko cats…
and the welcoming dachshund.
People linger, this pleasant summer afternoon.
They linger over everything from sidewalk books…
to a sidewalk coffee (which he is enjoying with his own hardcover book, thank you very much).
I almost linger myself right through this doorway…
because the Regional Assembly of Text is one of my favourite places in the whole city. Run by two Emily Carr University grads, it offers a whole world of everything relating to print and text, some vintage, some current, much of it locally made.
But I don’t fall through the door.
Instead, I find myself nipping eastward ’round the next corner. My new eyes are having a good time, but my old ears suddenly don’t want all the noise of an urban main artery.
Once off Main Street — just like that — my new eyes and my old ears are both equally happy.
(Watch this space.)
WALKING WOMAN 