510 Quayside Village: Something Extraordinary

April 13th, 2010

Photo Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/staci/

It use to be a bi line for me: Making the Ordinary, Extraordinary. I think we owe it to ourselves to find the extraordinary in the ordinary everyday. After all see extraordinary where their is only ordinary in most eyes is a very special gift. But it does something else: when you seek out that one thing that stands out to you, you begin to look at the world we different eyes, and when you do that, the process of change begins.

Here’s just a little sample out of my diray, written on Sunday April 11, 2010.

I was in North Vancouver for a weekend workshop given by Dr Joe Dispenza of Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind fame, or Dr Joe as he is affectionately called. The Sunday portion of the workshop was due to start at 9 AM.

So at 6 AM and got up, showered and dressed and headed out for a walk about. Area of North Vancouver I was in was lower Lonsdale which is basically a south face slope down to the harbour. Since I was at the Harbour, there was really nowhere to go but up.

As I climbed up one of the streets, I was struck my the community feel of the place, and how inviting the urban landscape was. Around me were new low rise apartment buildings. Most of them had quaint inviting fronts, neatly landscaped and tidy. Some of these apartments resembled the brown-stone walk up in lower Manhattan (if there any left). I past several of these neat, modern apartments, enjoying their landscaped yards.

The walk while strenuous was pleasent and I met one very friendly dog, and his owner. As I crossed over a street I was struck my a new apartment building that seemed to have broken the mould. I love the chocolate colour exterior, a neat turret. But it was until I started walking by the first floor apartment entrances did I notice how extra ordinary they where. Some one had put a lot of time an effort into making a real garden, rather than another nice, low maintenance landscape. The garden ran the length of the building. You could see someone had been hard at work getting it tidied for the summer. All kinds of plants where on display with some all ready in bloom.

To see a garden instead of landscaping is really unusal these days. The scene left a big impression on me. I even noted the address, 510 Quayside Village.

The garden lifted the walk from ordinary to extraordinary!

The sight made me perk up and take more note of my surroundings. No prescription cialis I was magically in the moment.

The first thing I did when I got back to the hotel was to create a little note about it in my Journal.

What extraordinary thing will you spot today?

If you’re not looking for it you won’t find it. But if you start your day expecting to experience the extraordinary, you surely will.

Have an extraordinary day!

Nick