Passing through a City

Yesterday was one of those days when I just plug in my iPod and walk around in the city to get some perspective and some peace. I enjoy these fleeting moments of passing through crowds of unfamiliar faces and unknown streets. Whenever I come to a new city, or an old city I've visited time and time again, I always do the same rutine, music and walking. It may not only be crowded streets I pass through, but empty shops or shops packed with people. I like to pass through everyday life situations only to see the moment become something special, a fleeting moment captured. I sat down on a table outside a coffee-shop to take in the buzzing of the place around me, at this particular day, a clear summer day, the city was full of eager turists wanting almost the same as me; to take in as much they could in a single day. They were all cueing at all possible places they could find to cue up at, they wanted to see everything in just a couple of fleeting moments, waiting until later to take it all in, to look at a screen with a picture and say "I do not know excatly when or where this was taken, but it must have been nice." Well, I sat at the table for a few more moments and walked away to listen to some more music, just passing through.


ONCE I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for
future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and
traditions;
Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met
there, who detain'd me for love of me;
Day by day and night by night we were together,--All else has long
been forgotten by me;
I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately clung to me;
Again we wander--we love--we separate again;
Again she holds me by the hand--I must not go!
I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

Walt Whitman