April 18th, 2026

The days are getting longer. There is a window in my living room that measures this. Every afternoon, the sun comes around the apartment’s corner and shines through; tracing a beam of light across the rug like a sundial. What time does it read? Break time.

When I’m working from home, this flash serves as a poke that pulls me out of my head. The sun chides me:

Hey you! Yeah you - the one sucked into that screen and a false sense of urgency. Late-stage capitalism be damned, come feel my glorious warmth like you are meant to!

I concede. This silent admonition is as much a marker of time as the steady noon bells ringing from a distant church.

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I hit pause and head to the kitchen to perform a prostration.

First: I spoon 4 grams of Japanese green tea into a pot. I bring the water to 78 degrees and gently pour it over the leaves. I bow, eyes closed, taking a moment with the scent - verdant, distant, a memory of a spring past.

For 45 seconds, I breathe.

Then, lifting my posture and the pot, I make my way to the living room. I kneel and place the pot in the sunbeam, fill my worn ceramic cup, and hold - the clay takes on the heat and warms my hands. A sip - it’s hot. Another sip - it’s not as hot. The flavour shifts as the temperature drops. The light shifts as the sun continues across the sky.

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As I get older, I’m finding a deeper appreciation for rituals. In returning to the same thing across time, that which changes becomes notable. The sun’s angle cycles with the seasons, its beam landing in my home differently each day. Its strength surges and wanes. Its arc accelerates and lingers.

My mind swirls in the ether of attention; a singular moment becomes a choice of activism against the relentless momentum of life. Slowly, the mind stabilizes.

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In this spirit of “same spot different day”, I’m drawn to familiar places - near and far - over and again. And try to do so with fresh eyes.

One of these places is a perch on the Osborne Street Bridge that overlooks Winnipeg’s Assiniboine River. This sidewalk is a heavily commuted one; a flurry of feet flowing from the dense residential village and out into the community. A railing marked with grafitti declares “BE HERE NOW” - and so I do, pausing to gaze out over the river and take a moment to breathe it in.

Just like the window at home, the light here also shifts. And it has been a quiet project of mine this past winter to photograph this arc across the season, from freeze to thaw. I invite you to take a minute with the following series of images, slowing down in consideration of both time and space.

If I had shifted my angle or focal length, plenty of other photos could have been had. A step to the left or right, an infinitude more. But in holding the frame steady across the days...it provides a different sort of window on the scene.

Thanks for slowing down with me. As the footer on every email says, this newsletter is brought to you by the power of green tea - across time.

Cheers to that,
David