Walking to work
The first discovery was that the city is much smaller on foot than it is on a transit map. Districts that felt like separate towns turned out to be ten minutes apart, joined by a footbridge or a lane behind a supermarket.
The second was that the route matters less than the rhythm. After a few weeks I stopped choosing a way and simply walked, letting traffic lights decide the turns. Green ahead meant straight on; red meant left.
By March I knew which bakery opened at six, which corner always smelled of laundry, and where the heron stood on the canal every morning at the same angle, as if waiting for a photograph that never came out well.
I kept a small card in my coat and wrote one line a day. That card became the first page of this notebook.