I appreciate the beauty around me.

At about four in the afternoon in winter, the low sun catches only the top two floors of the buildings, so that a grey street gets a bright ledge running along the top of it.

Almost nobody looks up. A worried mind is busy scanning — running the perimeter, checking exits and faces and what might go wrong at six.

Scanning and looking are different activities using the same pair of eyes, and the scan usually wins, because it believes the stakes are higher.

Noticing the ledge fixes nothing. But attention has to be somewhere, and for the length of one bus stop it can be up there instead.