my walking project.

on learning to appreciate old cities.

When you first learn theory, you learn tricks to better appreciate a piece of work. One of these for music is to repeatedly listen to a single song while hearing only one instrument at a time.

For me, I do this by walking cities.

I've lived in Boston for too many years. At seventeen, I called a hotel room in Cambridge home. It was the dead of winter, and I was alone for the first time in my life.

I remember walking the city for hours. My first time emerging from every train stop. Discovering each neighborhood as its own independent world.

Now, when I move around the city, my experience is snapshots from those few first months. Almost none are of the following college years spent around those same blocks. and none are of the handful of 'professional' years spent living just a block from that hotel room.

Visiting the coffee shop where I tried to impress my first real boss. Said goodbye to my first real relationship. Ate a single scrambled egg at closing after leaving college. I still only find myself revisiting the many nights I got a single takeout order there as a kid.

In early January, I attempted to reset these. Four complete walks. One trees, one places, one buildings, and one people.

As with music, cities are best appreciated one instrument at a time.