The fountain

I opened my eyes and saw pink flowers; the countryside was dotted with flowers of all colours. Bees bounced between the thistles. I was delighted by all that I saw when I opened my eyes on the train journey; sleep is seductive, but so, too, is colour.

I spent the afternoon on my feet, wandering. I think wandering felt right because I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. I wanted to walk to figure out where I should be. This has been a theme lately: I put one foot in front of another and look around, admiring the world around.

On my first stop I saw a tiled floor with a Greek motif reflected in the chrome espresso machine in a small cafe. I revealed in the sound of the espresso machine; the way the steam wand halts with a whimper. I appreciated the colour of all the ceramic cups on top of the machine. I noted that “Greek motif” is now part of my vocabulary. With studying, I see more patterns in the world.

I kept walking, drinking one of the best decaf flat whites I have had. I look up and see a car pass whose license plate ended with “JOY”. I look around and see and appreciate the architecture of all that is around: the way that two houses next to each other have doors that look exactly the same, the corinthian capitals of the pillars in the front of some buildings, the different kinds of columns whose name I can’t remember but that I know are of specific orders.

We are all time travellers. Did this thought come from looking at Georgian architecture over a hundred years old? With every second we travel through time: we go to the future. And with every moment we look back, we go to the past . We live within time, our time, and all of time. The coffee reminded me of a place I visited last year. There is something delightful about how the mind can go from appreciating taste to admiring the temporal in the space of a minute.

I kept walking, exploring, ending up in a Parish courtyard. A person sat on the stone steps at a red door, taking notes. I wonder if they were writing a story. Studying? I wonder. Shortly thereafter, walking loosely in the direction of an art gallery, I thought to myself “the world is my art gallery”. Wherever we go there is architecture, people, stories – life – just like in an art gallery.

I stopped at a fountain, a tall turquoise fountain with a gilded top. A bird perched on the top. I appreciate how we can all see the world from our own perspectives. Perhaps only birds will see the city from the perspective of sitting atop the fountain. What can I see from where I am?

The gardens are blue and red and yellow and a lighter blue and pink and white. The grass is green; the trees around the fountain are green, too. Did we remove a tree to make space for the fountain, or did we plant the trees to make this space? Around me dozens of people sit on benches. An older man looks upward with his hand on his chin and an inquisitive look on his face, as if deciding where to go next. I, too, am deciding where to go. His gaze was toward the spire of the church I had passed several minutes earlier.

As the water rushes down the mountain, I realise I am not sure how fountains work – there is so much to learn; there are details everywhere. The prospect of rain that the sky carried fell into the background as I watched people pass by one by one, many stopping to take pictures and to look at the fountain. I wondered if I might see a rainbow here on a sunnier day.

Two kids shout “playground!”, looking excitedly toward said playground. A lady seated at a nearby bench looks toward the fountain and smiles. I do too. How many people have stood here before, smiling at the fountain?

I’m not sure how much time I spent watching the world go by. I kept watching because I was so excited by all of the stories: the people who decided to spend time here. Eventually, I stood up and started walking toward the art gallery. The fountain kept flowing as I walked away. In the background and all around, new memories are made second by second, minute by minute.

Why am I here at the fountain? I wondered. The first answer that came to mind was “To be part of the story.”