It’s a deliberate choice not to listen to anything as I walk. No Adele, no Ki and Dee, not my Mum. Nothing. No one. Instead, I listen to my thoughts like a descant over honking horns and tweeting birds. Yesterday, I heard Arabic, as beautiful as any Adele song, and today opera, performed on foot by a guy on Harbord. Would I have noticed either had my ears been devoted to the sound of Tom Rosenthal’s happy melancholy? When I was a runner, I always listened to music. Tina Turner. Celine Dion. Cher. Name a power ballad, and I had it on my playlist. These days, I’m moving much slower, and my music reflects my pace. But sometimes, like now, silence is golden. Because it’s in silence that my mind gets to duet with the city.