When I first arrived in Los Angeles in 1996 from a 2 year sabbatical traveling the world, I was struck by the madness that is living in a big city. It was particularly overwhelming as I had spent considerable time in extreme wilderness situations where I had educated my eye to appreciate the beauty of Mother Nature. However and as a consequence, living here I had blunted my perception of her finesses in this newly discovered city life.
I could not see and I struggled daily with my perceived absence of her – the concrete, the noise, the acrid smells of car fumes and chemicals, the shabby, the dirt and the forgotten left on the sidewalk like unwanted trash. Furthermore, with what seemed like so much anger all around me and artificial time eroding the spaces between life’s articulation, I thought Nature had obviously abandoned me in this lost cause that is the City of Angels. My life felt empty without her seductive display enfolding me. As I started to despair, a chance encounter, as so often happens, sent me a message from Socrates reminding me that walking was the natural pace of thought.
So I started to walk and a whole new world of possibilities emerged – I began to hear the sing-song chatter of migrating birds, from the parrot to the humming bird, I noticed the tropical greens and exotic colors of the flowers in every landscaped garden, the rich abundance of wildlife from skunks, raccoons and possums to coyotes, mountain lions and deer. I was simply stunned by the rich diversity of life around me, accomplices to nature’s design living invisibly in every oasis across this expansive concrete desert. It was a truly remarkable revelation. I shrugged off my despair as I returned to her delight.
I so know what you mean, I have lived in cities most of my life and have always found walking to be the ultimate bond with whatever song the city has. By song, I mean every city has a kind of music of its own; the birds, the sound of the street cars in San Francisco, the sound of pigeons in New York, the L in Chicago. Hearing that song and being able to harmonize with it is a kind of sensory epiphany.