Helen Lawson Williams led a Street Wisdom Walkshop in Sydney. Here’s what she and the group discovered!
Our mid-week walk was cozy – just the four of us gathered in a courtyard in inner Sydney, keen to reconnect with some streets we often think of as touristy and a bit tacky. We started with a range of questions, from a couple of loose variations on “what should I do next?” to a more pressing “how can I find a better balance?”.
The sensing walks brought back a wealth of textural and structural detail from some tiny old laneways, a fascination with light and shadow, and a new appreciation for the power of slowing down: “I didn’t want to speed back up”.
The street quests turned up a series of intriguing clues: “don’t turn back”; “it’s all linked together somehow, but I need to spend the time to see the big picture’; “sometimes what you really need is to stand by the Harbour and cry for a minute”.
For me, the themes ended up being colour, contrast, and movement – or kaleidoscoping, to make a verb of it. That’s useful as I’m thinking about my next couple of months of work. The street helped me see that although my core project could easily take 150% of my time, a singular focus will make me feel hemmed in, which will be counter-productive in the end. Now it’s clear I need to set aside some quality kaleidoscoping time, and that thought on its own makes me excited for the year ahead.
Agapanthus always make me think of Dumbledore
Millions of tiny fish
SO BRIGHT
I love the full stop.
*****
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