Another part of me almost didn’t come. I wasn’t sure if it was worth walking somewhere that never really asks you to walk. But I ended up there anyway, almost by accident, following a curve in the sidewalk that led into a silence I couldn’t name. The trees were tall but didn’t stretch too far, trimmed just enough to let the light through without becoming wild. Everything looked intentional. Everything said stay, but not to me. It’s strange how a place can seem both open and reserved. I didn’t belong, and yet I was allowed to pass through. That’s what it felt like.
Between the buildings, I saw clean lines and perfect spacing, like someone had drawn the city from memory but removed all the interruptions. The air was lighter, the light was slower. I didn’t hear music, or horns, or vendors calling out. Just footsteps, occasional voices, and the low hum of distant traffic that didn’t seem in a rush. I paused by a café that looked like it had never been closed, like it had always existed in that exact spot. There were red chairs, umbrellas, and people who didn’t seem surprised by any of it. That’s when I realized the surprise was mine, not theirs. They live inside the calm. I’m only visiting.
Calm has a shape here. It’s in the way the trees line up with the poles, the way the steps feel even under your shoes. I kept walking toward a statue, not because I recognized it, but because it stood alone in the filtered light. His name was Alfredo Pietri. His shadow cut across the plaque, his face turned toward something I couldn’t see. I stared longer than I meant to. Not at him, but at the space around him. The kind of space that makes you aware of yourself, like you’re too loud just by breathing. I took a photo without thinking. Not to remember the moment, but to prove to myself that I had stood there. That I was allowed to.
Later I crossed the street and the silence didn’t break. The cars were quiet, the people distant. No one looked twice. No one wondered why I had stopped. I kept thinking about the other parts of the city. The ones where the sidewalks don’t line up and the cables hang low and the voices echo from too many directions at once. I’m not saying this place is wrong. I’m saying it feels edited. Like someone trimmed the excess. Like someone decided that beauty means less noise, fewer people, more space between everything. Maybe that’s what order feels like. Not peace. Just space.
Nothing happened during this walk. No incident, no conversation, no moment of revelation. Just a slow realization that some parts of the city don’t shake because they were never built close enough to feel the tremor. That maybe quiet isn’t something you earn, it’s something you inherit. And walking through it, I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t sad. I just noticed. And I kept noticing. The way a body can tense in beauty, the way a stranger can feel visible and invisible at the same time. I didn’t write anything down while walking. I didn’t need to. The contrast wrote itself.
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
