14 May 2024 – Spring is busy admiring herself, everywhere you look.

Horse chestnut candles aflame in all those towering trees…

this lot white, but many red ones as well.

I’m enjoying the day, enjoying this walk in a favourite neighbourhood just south-east of my own — so like my old Hillhurst neighbourhood in Calgary, back in the 1970s. Wooden frame homes, generous front porches, neighbourly architecture creating a comfortable, engaging, neighbourly streetscape.

I am therefore delighted but not surprised to see a tree garlanded with messages.

And the theme…? I ask myself.

The tree tells me.

I circle the tree, reading some of the replies.

Among them, an earnest statement of a basic principle…

an example of that principle in action…

and a sweeping philosophic directive that, unpacked, could fuel much further thought.

It has captured my thought, in any event.

I find myself looking for examples of generous action, right here on the street. Just ordinary… everyday… components of the streetscape that, through this lens, translate as generosity in action.

The table & chairs in this volunteer-tended Green Streets traffic circle, for example..

and the beauty of this long stretch of gardening activity, bordering the sidewalk.

Individual homeowners are doing all this, yet they’re not the ones who see it. We, the passers-by, we’re the ones to enjoy the results.

There’s a felt heart tied around a tree trunk — no reason, just because…

and yet another streetside take-one/leave-one library.

This one, says the little plaque, is Lizzie’s Library…

and I admire not just the neatly stacked books on offer, but the freshly planted marigolds as well.

Farther along, a bench (beside yet another streetside library) for anyone who might like a moment’s rest…

and then a swing, for anyone who’d rather kick up their heels.

Judging by the worn path beneath, there’s been a lot of heel-kicking!

I’m not obsessively “theme-hunting,” mind you, I’m enjoying the whole walk just as it comes.

Heading back north on Sophia, passing Tea Swamp Park (home to “awesome,” remember?), I pay proper attention to the other side of the street. To the new-build, on the corner.

Which would be hard to ignore.

And I wonder idly if design elements like this, the prevalence now of bold graphics on new-builds, is at least in part the result of eight years of Mural Festivals. Powerful visuals now part of our street vocabulary…

Then my mind moves on, the way mind do, and i start to laugh.

Because I’ve just remembered another of the answers to the “Generosity is…” challenge.

Another suggestion about how to behave.

See? It’s simple.