Flânerie meditation.

The sprawl of Eastern Montana.

 When I was a teenager, I was introduced to the concept of mediation. I would attend weekly meditation meetings at a local Buddhist dharma center. This was in Eastern Montana in an old large home that had once belonged to a local furniture dealer when things like furniture were still something that shops would have made locally/regionally. Because of where this was located, the meditations were led by old former hippies from the 60s. They would start the meetings with a parable that, for some reason, would always have connections to hamburgers being a basis of society. For example, one parable was about a poor beggar begging for money, so he could eat a hamburger to stave off starvation. He ended up discovering that his favorite warm coat that his mother had given him had money sewn into the lining. His precious warm coat, upon becoming worn enough to tatter the fabric, provided him with the money to purchase a new coat and begin climbing out of poverty due to the generational wealth of his mother. After the parables were done, we were told to close our eyes and focus on some music, which was an irregular beat from a drum. They did this for about 15-20 minutes. I would sit with my eyes closed, watching the WinAmp like light show on my eyelids, as I let the intrusive thoughts of my subconscious get drowned out by the drum beat. I would also focus on imagining the circle of my breath as I inhaled through my nose, filled my lungs, and then exhaled though my mouth. As a disgruntled teenage punk kid living in a conservative town, this really helped calm me and let me sort through the thoughts in my subconscious. Perhaps, it also paired well with my teenage development of my hormones finally leveling out, but it was a great life skill to learn. When anxiety and stress would become almost overwhelming, I could focus for a bit on counting my breaths to bring order to my thoughts.

Seattle of 2008.

 Another method I would use for calming myself down was to go on walks. When I moved to Seattle after high school, I struggled with meeting people or figuring out the city's cultural options for my underage age group, and would take myself on long walks around the city to explore. Walking is still honest. As a punk kid, working two minimum wage jobs, and taking night classes, walking around was the most affordable thing for me to do. I'd pop on my headphones, carry around a camera and a sketchbook, taking photos along the way of things that interested me and doodling elements of the city that I found to be interesting. For example, a glass pineapple as an exterior wall sconce. At one point, I found a black canvas gas mask bag at a military surplus shop that fit around my camera bag. With this I was able to disguise that I was carrying around a camera with me and could also fit my sketchbook, pens/pencils, and a book to read.

Reflective windows of Paris.

 Flash forward another 5 years and I was living in France for a year of studying abroad. Still walking everywhere, I was exposed to the concept that what I loved to do had a French name : flânerie, and I was a flâneur. I was glad to learn that this French name was the same in English and included the accent mark. (Granted, I made the initial search with a British English dictionary, which was a bit like hedging my bets.) During this time abroad, I made a friend who was also studying abroad, but from Germany, and we would sit in cafés after class and discuss art and philosophy. One point that she brought up rang deep with my love of walking. It was that as people traverse around the city, they are frequently doing such with headphones in. This act of listening to music provides a soundtrack for one's travels, but what she was arguing was that it was imposing a soundtrack upon the city. The city didn't choose the songs that one listens to while walking around, and thus by walking around with headphones one is separating themselves from their surroundings. When I started walking around without headphones in, I encountered that irregular rhythm again, but this time it was the rhythm of the city and not a drum. It was the sound of my boots clicking on the pavement, snippets of conversations of people I passed, vehicles passing, birds in the trees, and construction equipment. Walking around the city became my meditation to once again clear my head of the din of thoughts.