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Arts & Communication A montage of small movements

To the core, the place where the dance is. handed something to a young woman, they cycled off in

In giving testimony to that, opposite directions.
Which co-scripts futures, Here, my companion walker noticed a woman smiling
at us as we crossed paths.
We shelter threads drawn from the air.
There are empty crates where a few months ago a man
At this corner we saw two people pondering over a map: approached a stall with no customers, he begun a banter
Is one of them responding to a stranger’s question about with the salesman, and suddenly there was a surge, people
directions? Or are they a couple deciding where to go next? were drawn to the stall.
A solar panel on a parking meter. Next to this tree, a woman massaged another woman’s
A food stall, now closed for the holiday, then spreading neck; they were waiting outside a building, waiting for it
out into the street providing seating for customers who had to open.
bought a complete meal with meat and rice and vegetables, Here, a car slowed down as we crossed the road.
all for only 10 yuan. “In an affluent neighborhood where And here, a scooter did not hoot as a bike got into its
many people work in low paid jobs, this is kindness, don’t way.
you think?”
And once again,
Someone held this door open for a delivery man.
Time taken out, time shared.
Here a man smiled at us while passing.
This formula consisting of walks, fields of attention,
Along this cycle lane a security guard pulled an old
ladies shopping trolley and environments, which causes the formation of a bloom
space (a form of attending to what is happening).
And once again, an elderly couple, a woman pushed a
The locations that hosted acts of kindness – hitherto
man across this road, he was sitting in a wheelchair……. undeclared yet consequential – became ripples, animating
“that’s love not kindness.”
a map that mirrors the space where the dance is.
At this junction, I was told pedestrians are given a better
It is a first tentative step toward mapping intensities
view because the buildings and walls converging here have registered in passing.
no pointed corners, they have not been chopped off, they
just have not been build. Like an apprentice captain on a steamboat, our close
observations in the street accumulate into a body of
And here, a raised voice in a quiet street, a man experience as together we learn to negotiate, to read, and
delivering food could not locate an address. A couple, write dispositions of flows, swirls, and ripples: markers
just about to drive off in their car, got out and helped him; of unfolding potential and moments that energize our
chatter and laughter echoed down the street.
affective landscape.
25 walks, 73 encounters with kindness, eight directions.
I scan for fugitive presences. Part 3: Currents
What happens in the process of giving this world a gesture,
Scan again and again.
What happens when we share these gestures of air.
For what is nascent.
through relating the occurrence,
I wait for it.
When we read with our feet,
I attend to it.
Listen to the breath,
I recall futures beckoning, good confident futures.
Watch it choreograph the dance of a finger,
Echoes of their song ring along lines trodden and lines
traced. See it weaving a relational net
Currents of time, time memorized, time experienced,
Something made by a craftsman. time recalled, lunar solar time, time pregnant with futures,
Last October, empty chairs had been lined up outside 73 acts of kindness looked for, observed, spoken, and
this printing equipment shop, a quiet shady spot. written:
On this street peripheral vision alerted me once again. At the place where the dance is the flow of writing has
Two bicycles met in the middle of the road. A young man been slowed down, we read by following lines at the point

Volume 1 Issue 1 (2023) 3 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.399