Stillness in the City
Toronto hums with constant motion. The streetcars rattle, the sidewalks overflow, the inbox fills before morning coffee. I’ve often felt swallowed by the pace of the city, convinced that peace was something reserved for quiet cabins and lakeside mornings far from here.
But over time I realized that stillness is not a place. It is a presence. Even in the middle of Queen Street, with horns blaring and people brushing past, there is space to slow the breath and notice the way the light bends off a building. There is space to sip coffee and truly taste it. There is space to listen, not just to respond, but to hear.
In my years as a realtor, I learned how quickly people chase the next thing. The perfect home, the best deal, the next opportunity. I found myself swept up too, measuring worth by how many showings I booked or how fast I closed a deal. And yet, the most important moments were always the ones in between, the exhale before walking into a house, the pause before answering a client’s question, the silence when everything finally felt aligned.
At first, I resisted the idea of slowing down. The city seemed to demand a constant sprint. But when I began to let go of that pressure, I discovered something else: the city itself became softer. Its rhythm didn’t change, but my relationship to it did. The noise became a backdrop rather than a weight. The rush became a reminder that I could choose differently.
Stillness in the city is not about escaping noise but meeting it differently. It’s about carrying an inner calm that the outside world cannot touch. It’s about refusing to match chaos with more chaos. It’s about knowing that presence can be woven into every corner of life, the morning commute, the negotiation table, the walk home at dusk.
You don’t need to leave Toronto to find peace. You don’t need to retreat to a cabin or cross the lake in search of silence. You need only to return to yourself. The city will keep moving, but you don’t have to move at its pace. And in that choice, in that quiet decision to slow your breath and soften your step—peace finds you.
That is the quiet power of presence.
