It is Thursday and raining, again, in Vancouver. Or rather, it is teary out. Street lights are blurred by mist as I walk beneath them. I can make out the soft dripping of water against weakened leaves and car roofs. Everything is an orchestra here in the Pacific Northwest, even the nearby echo of teenagers strutting down the parallel laneway.

Like every other day, I am finding ways to kill time. Vancouver is four hours ahead (and, technically, a day behind) of New Zealand, so I am eagerly waiting for the appropriate time to call my parents. Homesickness, which is more of a calcified longing in the well of my stomach, often moves among me. If I turn too suddenly, or walk too fast, I find my belly aching. And like any child with an upset tummy, why would you not seek guidance? Seek parental care? Call your parents to complain? So I ring their Whatsapp even when they are still asleep. Even when New Zealand time is still in the second trimester of the morning. So you can imagine the necessity to distract myself, like some sorry toddler, through any means possible: scrolling Instagram reels, or binge-watching reality TV.

I decided to take up strolling my neighbourhood after a doom scroll-turned-Wikipedia deep dive where I uncovered the term “Strollology”, a science founded by Swiss sociologist Lucius Burckhardt. Strollology, according to my algorithm, is the notion of walking as a creative endeavour, to walk with the aim of consuming the aesthetic of space and objects around us. Walking and observing seemed like a common practice, although, would they designate it a science if it was as automatic as I assumed it to be? In any case, strollology seemed like the perfect distraction from calling my parents as soon as I felt the first tide of homesickness.

So here I am. It is Thursday and raining, again, in Vancouver. Or rather, it is teary out.

Street lights are blurred by the mist as I walk beneath them. I can make out a soft dripping of water against weakened leaves and car roofs. Everything is an orchestra here in the Pacific Northwest, even the nearby echo of teenagers strutting down the parallel laneway. It is three-o-clock New Zealand time and I am homesick for the clicking of cicadas, the trembling songs of tuīs and fantails. There is no sound like it here in Vancouver, but strolling was here to distract me. To highlight all the other things the city had to offer, the very things that led me to move here to begin with.

When I first began strolling, I would walk to work and back. Which, truthfully, was more than just an aimless stroll. Each morning and evening would be an hour’s walk and back. It was the only time I could insert strollology into my routine. But I never did observe much during this time. Everything danced to the same rhythm. Traffic and honking the whipping of Teslas through pedestrian crossings. The same people would run for the bus, only to miss it and stand sullen at the bus stop. Occasionally, I saw a gaggle of schoolchildren being escorted to their school by chaperones. But perhaps this is what Burckhardt encouraged. To observe. Even if observing felt monotonous, even if the observations were rushed, nine-to-fivers scurrying up Cambie Street to make their morning community. Strollology seemed to be a science I couldn’t get right in the beginning.

I check my phone every five minutes. I am a believer that time goes by fast if you act on your best behaviour. A woman walks past me on the phone, she is talking about Thai food and I find myself jealous. There is a warm glow above me from apartment lights, alongside a gentle bass that undulates in the air. A nearby balcony hosts two people smoking, I cannot make out what they are saying. I check my phone again, and seven minutes have passed. One beautiful thing about the city is that it always feels awake, even if it is known as the sleepier of the Canadian cities.

When I first moved to the city, I felt akin to a recently adopted cat –idling beneath counters or under beds. Everything was overstimulating. I missed the sound of New Zealand wind, or even the tires against the roads as cars turned round the corners. Somehow everything sounded different, even if everything was the same. Homesickness became chronic and I was calling my parents almost every day. I didn’t care if they had no updates, I simply craved their accents. I am unsure if I would have been open to the science of strolling any earlier than when I learnt about it. There was part of me that didn’t want to replace the sounds of my home with the sounds of this new place. Strollology was the push over the ledge in teaching me the art of letting go, which I thought I could only do when ready – although, I’ve soon realized, ‘letting go’ doesn’t care much for autonomy in the end.

When it rains in Vancouver, it is as though a duvet is thrown over the city. Everything becomes lethargic. I dream of resting my head on a patch of moss I see on the bevelled sidewalk. Burckhardt says that strollology is the act of perception, the act of intention. To enter a space on a walk with the intention of experiencing the walk. Strollology asks us what it means to walk not as a vehicle, but as the outcome itself. I began strolling to distract myself from homesickness, to hold back calling my parents when I was in the throes of homesickness. It has now been an hour since I have checked the time, I suppose I should begin walking home. Tonight, through clumps of moss and the lullaby of traffic and strangers, I have abated homesickness. There is no emptiness of where New Zealand once was in my brain, strollology has allowed me to make friends with the city. All of nature's intimacies I experience through wandering. Would Burckhardt be proud? Did I become a strollologist? I forgot to call my parents, but the city looks beautiful tonight and I no longer feel far away from home.

Mary Kelly (she/her) is an Aotearoa-Canadian writer and the Poetry and Prose Editor for SAD Magazine. She is an incoming MFA candidate at The University of British Columbia. Mary’s work has been nominated for Best of the Net and long-listed for Pulp Literature’s Kingfisher Prize. You can find more of her at www.marykelly.ca and @marykelly.co

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Strollology: The Bipedal Art of Letting Go