Red stairs to somewhere

Please tread on me
London, ON
July 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

We're all in a rush. I get it. Life gets busy, and no one wants to be left behind. So we move faster. Put our heads down. Blinders on. Focused on one thing: Getting there. Maybe two: Keeping up.

But if you slow yourself down just enough on occasion, you not only increase your chances of falling off the back of the treadmill. You give yourself enough time to see things in the cracks, in the margins, that you'd otherwise miss.

Like this red painted staircase that peeks out of a forgotten alleyway beside busy Adelaide Street.

I don't know where it goes, or who lives there, but that's beside the point. What matters is the fact that it's there at all. That it's probably been there for an age, maybe repainted a few times. And every once in a while, it gets its moment in the sun.

On this particular morning, it's the color that grabs my eye, but the texture that holds it. You can almost see the years in that paint, the rough, detailed surface betraying a lifetime of waiting out back. For something to happen. For someone to notice.

Unassuming staircase as metaphor for life? Makes sense to me.

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