Bubbles and Splash!
E142: Do we take advantage of all the time we have saved?
Dearest Friend and observant member of Tribe Tilt
Generations before us have come up with advances in technology to gift us with less burden and more time. How are we using that time? How are we leveraging the technologies?
** MEETUP? I'm in London for the month of June **
A WALK THROUGH TIME
It surprised me, but walking is the thing I have found most wonderful about my month in Europe. I divided my time between eight different towns — Sete, Nimes, St Felix de Palliers in France, and Barcelona, Tarragona, Zaragoza, Madrid & Segovia in Spain. The independence and freedom of not jumping into a car to get the smallest thing has been a joy.
I’ve realized how much I enjoy walkable neighbourhoods. Until I moved to the auto-designed suburbs of Canada I have always lived within walking distance of stores and other life affirming joys. These past months in India, NYC and Europe reminded me again how much I prefer to walk to my jaunts and my food.
What is that I specifically enjoy, I wondered?
Is it independence?
Perhaps. I can be independent moving around on my own 4 wheels. But I feel like my jaunt has to be worth the carbon expended.
Is it the exercise?
As I look back on my exercise map in May, the spikes in stepcount have been effortless. My toes follow my curious nose. I bound out of bed in anticipation of what I am going to notice, sketch or learn that day. Strain? Joint pain? They seem to also be on vacation!
Is it a closer connection to history?
One of the easiest ways to orient myself in a city is to do a free walking tour. Each city offers a variety of guides who give me a sense of where I’m standing in time and space, history and geography. The best have proven to be great storytellers, who honestly want you to love their city as much as they do. They draw you back through time:
The young lady born in Zaragoza with a degree in English from their local university assigned each of us a persona so that we could appreciate the social strata impact of the times. It became visceral, rather than reading a line in a history book.
The Irish BioMed PhD grad in Madrid found it a great way to get out of his lab and connect with the city he had chosen to make his home, and shared all his favorite places to eat tapas.
The best, however, was the excited young archaeologist in Barcelona in the El Born Centre who walked us through an actual dig. A segment of Barcelona had been ploughed and paved over to punish the city for holding a seige as part of the Spanish War of Succession. The buried homes captured life between 1300-1700 and as we were the only two to show up at the 4pm English tour, we got a private viewing!
Is people-watching my Netflix?
It is the tiny joys that I take the time to notice when I am walking. Like social patterns and bubbles.
Hand in hand
I notice how many older couples openly and enjoyably walk hand in hand in Zaragoza and Tarragona. They are deeply engaged in conversation. Or sharing an ice cream. Then the lack of embarrassment. Is it cultural in Spain, I wonder?
Bubbles
Now, do you know what makes centuries-old bricks really come alive? Bubbles!
There is so much joy in bubbles! We sat outside the Cathedral in Barcelona enjoying our al fresco meal, listening to the guitar busker as we enjoy our fresh bread and the bright red stuffed pimento peppers. … And someone brought out the bubbles.
Immediate joy! The little kids squealed and obviously walked straight to the source. Some adults swiped at the colourful spheres. Others paused - even those with head phones, their hands loudly gesturing as they continue the conversation with the invisible person in their hand. But ALL continued their day with a smile on their face.
Is this how people made their pleasures in the ancient times? Catching up on the next installment of palace intrigue. Gathering in piazzas and squares to paint, saunter, and make music in 1428? Or 1983? Was people-watching the TV and Netflix of previous generations?, I wonder as row after row of humans of all ages (the 63-yr old as rapt as the 17-yr old) walk by me each encased in their individual cone of separation, their necks bent at 45 degrees, their focus buried in the little rectangular object in their hand.
Did generations go through all these advances so that we are more apart, even when we are together?
It is also the things I am able to notice at knee height.
Splash!
The little boy who walks past. Then circles back, locks eyes with his mother defiantly And stomps his way through the puddle! And circles back to do it again! In a car, I would not have stopped long enough to take in that little drama! And laugh heartily at it. And to wonder why, as mothers, we don’t want our kids to splash in puddles. And why as children we knew we wanted the sloshy feeling of stepping in that muddy mess. And curious as to what we learned or when we “grew” out of puddle sloshing and why? Maybe I will take it up again in my old age. As an homage to walking.
How am I using the gifts given by previous generations?
As I sit on a stone bench in one of these small towns I get a sense of my fleeting place in history. I am one brick, one small pebble in this giant humanity. I walk on stone paths trudged centuries before by young women carrying water from the well. I discover secret code hidden by fleeing families in little bits of door jamb, during times of religious persecution. I slow down to feel the weight of history.
I understand the gift of time that previous generations have worked hard to offer us: running water, the washing machine and dishwasher, the car, the PC, all our subsequent advances in technology — just so that we might live with less burden and better health in the best possible time on earth.
How do I honour that privilege?
Goodbye, Mrs Robinson.
My heartfelt sympathies to the Robinson and Obama families who are feeling the rawness of loss of their mother and grandmother.
This week marks three months since our own mother passed.
Some days it feels like yesterday, and I feel her perfume waft around me, and I can hear her telling me to wrap up warmer against the sharp English wind. Then I turn around … and it is just the wisp of her memory that stares back at me, her voice an echo in my head.
Other days, it feels like years. Like a weight that will always be there.
And that stark reminder to all members of Tribe Tilt that time with loved ones is not date-stamped and guaranteed: TT call home.
Thank you for being a part of Tribe Tilt. We are a group that believe we can make a difference to the people and places that are precious to us - that we have hope and agency in our lives.
Stay healthy. From there all else becomes possible. Hoping to see you again next week.
Karena
My thanks to
for walking back through the history of this essay to help me make sense.Dateline: London, UK
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Love the questions you asked, Karena. Makes me step back and assess how I'm letting myself benefit from technology. I find it inspiring as well how you're embracing such a bright, youthful scene in your walks. I now see walks are portals to undiscovered sceneries. Maybe that's why I personally enjoy them.
This is so beautiful! I feel like I was transported to those 8 cities with you. Thank you for this reminder to walk more often — to connect with the earth, the history, the people… and myself!