cross-walking

You can tell a lot about a city from its crosswalks. Try it. Go down to the nearest corner in your town. Pick a corner with traffic control if you have one--stop signs, traffic lights...the ones with real crosswalks are the best. Spend some time there watching people cross. How do they do it?

I've had the privilege to visit a few other towns lately. In some of them, people cross regardless of the light. Sometimes people only do that when they're hurrying; sometimes it's a fact of living in that city. Others have people who will wait all day if the light doesn't change. Most of them are somewhere in between. Here where I live there are streets where you can stop traffic by stepping off the sidewalk, and crosswalks that flood the instant the white walking person lights up. There are a lot of places where people cross against the light, but mostly very late at night (or early, like Sunday morning) and only after checking to make sure there' s no traffic.

And that's in the centre of town.

How much of a hurry is it?

Why are you hurrying?

What would happen if you waited,
looked around,
took the time to see the places where you live every day?
What would be so terrible
if you enjoyed the richness before you?

What if?