Waterfront – January 2013… I think.

That time that Vancouver was engulfed in a fog. It was a hauntingly beautiful, for it stayed like that longer than a week. From morning to night fall and all through the night, it just stayed.

When I was a child, I always associated fog with the afterlife. Winters back home in Manitoba were especially memorable, for it was nothing but white in every direction. I’d shout “Are we in heaven?!” with my child like ignorance. Those around me were mocking my abilities to see things differently.

I didn’t care, for it felt awesome.

Getting older, I associate things in a much more grim manner. Maybe it had something to do with the years I’ve had since that moment. but in a two week span it felt like a purgatory. Everything felt quiet, you couldn’t see ahead of you. whitespace covering the horizon.

It’s not as bleak as I make it out to be. Within those weeks, it’s one of the more peaceful things I’ve gotten to experience this year. To just sit in a fog and let my mind go blank, helped with perspective. When you can’t see more than 15 meters ahead, just sit down an imagine you’re the only one there.

Being the tree falling in the forest.

I didn’t think of it much then, but I keep thinking about it now. When I get overwhelmed with what I should be doing, or being confronted with a situation that I don’t need to have, I think back to that time, to be calm and relax.

We always associate fog with having a clouded perspective, or a blockage of sorts. But it might be better to look at it this way:

You don’t always have to look that far ahead. 

Just be present. Just be here. That’s all it needs to be sometimes.