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City Life

Photos to calm the nerves

Graffiti on the side of a chimney, E & N Railway Trail, Victoria, B.C.

New infection rates are going up by leaps and bounds. They call it exponential. The omicron variant is taking over. Governments are imposing restrictions on gathering sizes. Schools may have to shut down again. The stock market is plummeting. Day traders are jumping off rooftops. And I haven’t got my wife a Christmas present yet. Ah, the anxiety!

For me, one of the antidotes to anxiety is to find a calming photograph and simply stare at it. It’s like an intervention. It interrupts all the voices that clamour for my attention. Most of that clamour is just click bait anyways. Why would I want to reward it?

There’s something about this chimney I found in Victoria a couple weeks ago, the way the green siding and the off-beige cinder blocks interact with the blue trim and blues of the sky. I treat it as shapes and colours with no particular message, and it sets my heart at ease.