Walking around my city 🌿

I think about my city in the abstract often. I think about how it's shaped my choices and my outlook.

My city is so small and packed. Everything has a place - a park, a school, a church. Yet it had no place for me. It's been a part of my heart but it's never been inviting. When I move around I feel that even these gorgeous trees around me know my smallest faults and ask me to either now down or turn away. The skies learn the desires in my heart and mock at me, amongst themselves of course - always shutting up when I am around. You know, the awkward silence in the room that follows when everybody was discussing you and you turned up. The roads sense my thoughts in solitude and invariably lead me down routes that go away and away.

That's why walking around as an adult, taking deep breaths with my shoulders un-hunched feels like I have conquered something. It was a beautiful walk, one of the best in recent times. Maybe this walking is a reminder of the compromise: living in this place and not being noticed, not by them and not by anybody. We have accepted each other. We exist in peace and take space. I am learning to not ask its permission and in exchange give it the benefit of doubt, as much as I can. Trust should flow both ways.

The city knows I'll always be back and I know that it's my forever home. One day, I hope, I'll feel the love it gives to all it's kin.