Mornings are very different in our new place.
Here there are no early morning blackbirds, cardinals, or blue jays, no turtle doves, no squirrels…
Here there are gulls and monarch butterflies heading south by the dozens, and the occasional gatherings and murmurations –
Here we have boundless skies over the outstretched cityscape –
Here we are by the lake, colours changing every day, different skies, different temperatures –
And here there is … CONSTRUCTION!
The whole neighbourhood is under construction.
Even just outside our balcony, there is construction – the site itself is due for a building soon, but in the meantime the large lot seems to be a drop-off point / work site for other nascent buildings nearby.
I’ve noticed the gates to the site open before 6 a.m. on weekdays, with workers arriving in their SUV’s, big long trucks backing in, delivering building materials, forklifts unloading materials, headlights lighting everything eerily.
In the background the 72 bus already trundles eastward towards Commissioners and the Gardiner roars quietly, the commuter day already in motion.
This new context has been an interesting place to be as so much more attention has started to shift to the climate change issue.
Every day in the media has more studies, more discussion, more pressure on politicians… it is moving fast.
And to be with this new ultra-urban vista, with the cranes in the sky, the trucks backing in before dawn, the constant motion of the highway,
there is a sense of the powerful relentless motion of our society, forever building, forever moving, forever growing.
The effort it would take to change, to turn it around, to make the giant shifts necessary…
Heck, that is gonna take some willfulness from all of us.
Lens Artist Photo Challenge – Filling the Frame
follow your nose 
Nice shots. Love the cranes. And the horizon clouds.
Thanks John
Hi, Katharine. Lovely meditation on “progress.” I wonder too how we go from here, now that we know the effects of our progress on nature. I’m trying to figure out where you live…At first I thought it was Melbourne or Vancouver and now I’m not sure!
Hi Patti! I’m in Toronto. We don’t have the ocean, but we do have a great lake… 🙂
I haven’t been to Toronto in quite a few years. But I’d love to visit it again. It’s a great city.
Yes it will. I hope for that change, but suspect there will be no meaningful effort until it’s way, way, way too late… Meaning, a crisis-response, probably headed by carbon capture tech. I think it was last year I read something along the lines of: we’re more likely to try and move the planet back away from the sun than simply give up fossil fuels.
It’s like turning a tanker around….
I really like that image of trying to move the planet away from the sun – the impossibility of it. My mind keeps trying to make it make sense – like a koan …
Interesting take on the subject Katharine- the contrast between the serenity of the lake vs the city construction is stunning. Yes it is going to be quite a struggle to turn the ship is progress around
It is going to take effort from all! Good point and good post for the full frame theme – I like the water and the cranes – whew – that is a lot of construction