Le Loup interview excerpt, 2016, edited

The sound of Le Loup is characterized by haunting vocals, syncopated rhythms, and bass lines that embrace dissonance in all of their anti-Classical glory. The artist behind this solo production is 24-year old Louis P., who does everything from producing his tracks to recording live bass and vocals. His lyrics have a tendency to flirt with the dark side of life in surprisingly accurate descriptions. Subdued but quirky, Peralte keeps his electronically-based tracks shocking and mesmerizing, all while retaining an authentic singer-songwriter flair. Songwriting, for this Queens native, is a way to record his rapidly fluctuating emotions in everyday life. His style blends futuristic electronica with some rather surprising historical influences, conglomerating into a hypnotizing collage of sound.

Clarifications

The following interview was conducted over the phone on the evening of December 9, 2016. Originally written for the Fall 2016 course, HNR340: Inside the Words and Music.

-Ableton is a songwriting and musical production program that allows tracks to be created and edited. It is the preferred software of many electronic musicians. 

-The description of Moondog is corrected from “Viking of Sixth Street” to “Viking of Sixth Avenue.” Moondog was also not homeless, but did busk regularly on the streets of New York.

Interview

I’ve heard a lot of the tracks you’ve recorded recently, and they’re all produced in Ableton. How much would you say that you have a vision of the song prior to using Ableton and how much are you just experimenting with the software at this point?

It’s not heavily rooted in the program itself. I think [Ableton is] just an easy way to get the recordings done, so usually it would just be me noodling on a guitar coming up with a melody, and I’ll go like, “Oh, that would go really well with something.” And that’s when I lay it down on Ableton. I’ll let that loop. I’ll start messing around with it in my head. It’s very physical. When I think of [the song], I start doing things with my hands, because that’s how I’m envisioning it. I’m thinking of it like...shapes, or I guess like a feeling. At that point that’s when it starts to become heavily rooted in the program because then I want to add to that.

Back to what you said about starting off with a short melody or a loop. Do you usually just hum or sing those melodies? Or do you hear it in your head? How does that work?

I almost always hum or sing in head voice. Like, it will always be like “hmmmm” or like a “doo dooo…” and then I’ll see what that feels like. So to me, [what I just sang] was like...a piano. So I’ll be like, “that’s gonna be a piano.” Usually I won’t envision anything when I’m playing the bass or guitar, I’ll actually feel those [instruments] out. I won’t think about what I’m going to play, I’ll just let my hands do it. And if [the phrase] is chordal, then I usually don’t imagine it all at once. I’ll start with the root and then I’ll do the harmonies however I see fit.

It’s interesting how you just let yourself play whatever on the bass. Are you afraid at all that it won’t sound good?

Not really, because a lot of it is muscle memory. For me, when it comes to playing the strings, it’s more rhythmic than anything. I don’t think very...melodically. I think that’s what I mean by “I’ll let my hands do whatever.” I’ll know where to go just based on the chord progression of the song. So it’s not like I’m just playing random notes.

Are you comfortable recording with instruments you may not necessarily have that much experience with?

Yeah, I do that all the time. If anything, that’s the most fun. For the most part, every song that I have is just an accumulation of happy accidents. That’s how I work. If I don’t know what I’m going to write I’m going to pick up an instrument that I’m terrible at. And I’m gonna play it, and I’ll be like, “Hey, that is cool. I will elaborate on that.”

So do you think knowing more about the instrument is actually a roadblock to writing with it? Because then the things you thought were cool...don’t become so cool anymore?

No, not at all. I mean if anything I always feel...what’s the word? Inadequate. I always feel really inadequate because I’m like, “I know that [what I’m doing] works for now, but what if I actually know my theory? What could this have been?” So I don’t think knowing more, or having more of a technical know-how, would be a roadblock when it comes to [writing with] these instruments.

Do you sit down and decide to write something? Or do you find yourself noodling or doing something else and then being inspired to open a program to record it?

Okay, so I only figured this out recently. But for the most part, it’s a compulsion. Like for me, [songwriting] is very meditative because I can focus on it and ignore everything else that’s going on. So if I’m ever sitting down and I don’t have something to do, I will just instinctively start doing something. I’ll either grab a guitar or I’ll open [Ableton] and start doing something there. Not because I want to, or I feel inspired, but because I have to. Because something inside of me is just itchy. And I need to scratch that itch. So there will be days where I’m not doing anything and I’ll just be going stir crazy. I’ll open [Ableton] up, and by the time I look at the clock it’ll have been been six hours. And I’ll have been doing that one thing.

Do you think part of it is having manic tendencies?

It’s definitely part of it. You know I started taking anti-anxiety meds, right? That’s a recent thing. I’m just comparing the way that I do things now to the way I did things when I last saw you. I’ve put out so many recordings so compulsively because of my anxiety. I feel like I have to do it. I have to produce something and to make my time worthwhile. A lot of that stems from the anxiety. I didn’t know until I was able to look back at my habits before taking meds.

Do you think that taking the anti-anxiety meds actually stifles your creative process?

Somewhat. It’s kind of sad, actually. I don’t know if it’s just because I started working, and I don’t have the time to write, but I don’t have the compulsion to sit down with the software, so I haven’t been doing that for three weeks now. But on the other hand, there are so many tracks that I’ve started but never finished because I was like, “This isn’t perfect, this isn’t perfect…” I have a few that I’ve written since I started on the medication and they’re a little looser, in terms of the quality, but they’re coming out with more ease.

So when do lyrics actually get written in your songs? Do you ever, instead of humming a melody, think of lyrics first?

I almost always do lyrics last. Because the song is generally a feeling I’m thinking about when I’m writing it. I’ll start out with the intro, and there won’t be any words for that. There won’t be any words for [the verse]...then I get to the chorus and at that point I have a feel for the song. So let’s say the feel for the song is…”I’m falling through the floor.” Then, the whole time I’m recording the rest of the song I’m just thinking of that one thing; “I’m falling through the floor, I’m falling through the floor.” I’ll quickly record everything still with just this one thought in my mind, and by the time I have the skeleton of the song down, I’ll go back and I’ll write the lyrics down.

I know that you also do a lot of creative freewriting. How come you don’t start off with lyrics from your writing?

I have a lot of poetry that I want to turn into songs but once I have the words down and they’re like an entity in and of themselves. I can’t find the right feel or tone to express it. Because they already have their own tone. So I feel like any music that I set to it wouldn’t actually match the right way.

On average, how often do you complete your songs? How many have one verse down, and how many have two verses?

I have this thing that I call the first verse curse. I’ll have the song. I’ll have the format of it like I told you, and I’ll have all this space to fill up [with lyrics]. I’ll come up with a really solid first verse, and then anything after that just doesn’t feel like it amounts to what I set up in the first verse. So all the good intentions and all of the good details, that’s all in the first verse. But then after that, it’s like how do I keep putting out this content? That’s the first verse curse.

How is it different to write solo as opposed to in a duo or in a band?

When I’m writing in a band, there’s a lot of “I don’t want to step on toes, I don’t want to tell you what you’re doing is bad, or I don’t like this.” Then there is also not wanting to be too overbearing and being like, “Well I wanted it like this.” So it’s a lot of judging your balance and territory. Writing solo is like, “Well, of course I’m going to do this. Of course I’m going to do that. And well, there’s that thing that I already know what to do.” So like, I don’t know, I get kind of bored with the stuff that I do sometimes, but writing with somebody else, it’s like, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Do you feel like that process diluted your original intentions for the songs?

Definitely. Because it’s like, “Oh, you kind of took away from what I meant, from what I felt.” I guess I didn’t really realize that I had such a deep connection between the intent of the song and the words of the song, the feel of the song.

Where do you hope to take your songwriting?

I want to start my own band. I want to see what everybody is able to make. I guess it’s kind of like reading someone’s diary. That’s how I use songs. They’re like my diary entries. I feel like everyone should have an opportunity to put [himself/herself] out there. So...long term, yeah, I want to start a band, I want to gig, I want to put my music out there, put the music I write with other people out there. But for me...the most fun is recording.

Who do you respect the most as a songwriter?

I have a few. I have Moondog. Moondog was the Viking of Sixth Avenue. He was this blind hobo in New York in like the 1940’s. And he was writing from the ’40’s up until like the late ‘60’s. His stuff is so weird. And so future. He would make his own instruments, and he would play them.

Who else?

Danny Elfman. His stuff in Oingo Boingo. That’s the band he has with his brother and some other people. If anything has the most influence on my approach to vocals, so if you were to put on a track by Oingo Boingo, you’d be like, “Oh, that’s why he does that.”

Those are all the questions I have. Thank you for your time!

The Sweetest Housing Development

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting the Sugar Hill affordable housing development with my studio. From its saw-tooth plan, attention to pre-cast details, and transparency of spaces, this project was not at all what I envisioned when the project architect (David Adjaye Architects) told us that it was for the lowest 10% of AMI households! (Around $15,000/year for a household of 4.)

There are many restrictions for affordable housing projects, which is why they typically look like this:

(View from the roof of Sugar Hill Development) 

Depressing! And check that huge shadow cast by the Greek-cross extrusion of the plan! It'd suck to have no light entering your window!

But David Adjaye's project looks like this:

I mean, what? At first glance, you might think...is this contextual at all?

But from the scale, subtle rose-detailing on the pre-cast concrete facade (which glimmers in just the right way!), and play in transparencies, the project is actually very rooted in its neighborhood (the junction between West Harlem and Washington Heights). There's a pre-school and large (78,000 SF) children's museum, which is rare up on 155th street. The project architect also talked about deriving certain datum lines from the surrounding context, but that's probably more to satisfy zoning than for the users...

A really nice lightwell condition on the ground floor, looking down into a double-height space of the museum.

From the museum, looking up.

A multipurpose space adjacent to the museum. Imagine playing a concert here! (Which my band might just pitch to them!)

Kiddie toilet in the pre-school classroom...pretty cool!

Almost Corbusian roof details...

That unobstructed roof view though.

If you want to learn more about the project, check out Broadway Housing Communities' website: http://www.bhc.org/housing/sugarhill/

October web shopping

I read somewhere that geminis have obsessive compulsive shopping tendencies? Maybe if I post these I won't feel the need to buy them. 

Dipped tulle skirt, Anthropologie 

I just waded in a lake of navy blue paint, nbd.

Python-trimmed leather Chelsea boots, Reed Krakoff

Sick. Details. The proportion of the block heel isn't overwhelming, and the loose ankle cuff at the top gives it balance. 

The Petra portfolio, Everlane

Sold out, but at $425, I couldn't afford it anyway. (Thinking about making this because of the simple cut...but I'd have to be really careful about construction.)

Missguided Faux Fur Coat, ASOS

Polar bear time.

Camo flannel, Uniqlo

Printed flannel shirts all the way!

Draped neck cardigan, Zara

I like the cut on this! Not too long, and streamlined.

Mobius ring, Jenny Wu LACE

Sci-arc professor and architect turned 3d printed jewelry designer. How very sci-arc. (40% off right now!)

African skies stack, 2 Bandits

Bracelets aren't usually my thing because I play piano and the weight difference on my wrists is annoying, but these are super cool and can stack in different ways!

Extended neck cage, Chromat (for the days I don't feel like talking to anyone)

Another architect-turned-fashion designer led brand.

I will never buy full-priced designer items as long as I'm in school...

Oh, and by the way, these are what I actually bought recently:

Venum challenger mouthguard, Amazon

Hayabusa hand wraps, Amazon

Lesson: If form follows function, then $$, not $$$$$, will be spent

ARC500.2: Stockholm: The Optimistic City

Stockholm was a city that really made me question its ambitions. Perhaps my weekend excursion was simply too short to discover anything beyond its message to tourists: "we're green, we're conservative, we're smart, we're fashionable, we're designed, we're growing!). The city was fairly insistent upon using clean design to distract me from how it worked as a system. Could the notion of the Picturesque (masking undesirable truths) be at work at an urban scale as well?

BACK TO THE FOUNDATIONS

My Swedish friend told me that Stockholm is built on a foundation of rock, so they have to drill deep into the rock to build anything. As a result, their buildings have extremely sturdy foundations. He works in demolition, so I can probably trust his opinion on this.

DESIGN CULTURE

Ahh, the Kulturhuset ("Culture House") in the central square Sergels torg. Built in the 1960's in an era of Modernist ambitions, it is massive, located at the heart of major transportation hubs, and consists of many layers. Above is the cleanest, most public layer.

Underneath the public ground is a semi-private level that serves as circulation and of course, mid-end and high-end retail. There is nothing that is not cleanly designed in this multi-layered plaza. Ironic that a lot of these shops are Swedish graphic and interior design stores. 

But upon closer examination, maybe architecture isn't the solution for their obsession with cleanliness. Maybe they should clean their ceilings first. But what are we looking at through these glass lenses?

Ah, on the layer above resides the infamous glass obelisk. This thing looks ancient, rock solid, and devoid of culture in the daytime and lights up at night to become "cultured," I guess. I'm not sure if the statement is meant to represent some sort of dichotomy in the work and night-lives of the Sweds. 

OLD CITY

Approaching Gamla Stan (the Old City). Over to the left you can see the Parliament house, semi-circular, a shocking combination of contemporary structure and nostalgic veneer. Once again, there is the idea that in order to be culturally cohesive, your building has to look like its surroundings. Although, it does express its "real" structure towards the skyline, so maybe something symbolic can be said, like without the old, the new wouldn't be possible?

Caves vs. corridor urban typology in the old city. 

I am severely afraid of anything that looks like this. It feels like you're marching to your own execution. Don't get me wrong, it's extraordinarily beautiful and clean, but lacking the dirtiness and grittiness that comes with...well, life. Walking through this makes me feel like I'm confined to the public zone that somebody wanted me to see. I want to see the underlying system that governs this, and I refuse to be silenced by beautiful exteriors. 

MODERNIST AND CONTEMPORARY AMBITIONS

Gunnar Asplund's Modernist ambitions. (1928) The use of abstraction of the classical orders and radical centralized form to establish monumentality. Apparently, from looking and this building, knowledge should be revered. It's too bad the building was closed over Easter weekend, but the exterior also conveys a sense of centrality and of controlled elegance. The rotunda is eerily reminiscent of the Panopticon.

Sketch of the Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit in the Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art). Clean lines of the exihibit vs my not-so-clean sketch (I'm never patient enough to wait for an inkwash to dry before closing my sketchbook...)

Contemporary ambitions for urban growth can be seen in the massive cranes that dominate the skyline. What kind of city does Stockholm want to become? How can they reconcile their fervor of building with their apparent dislike of immigrants and foreigners? Apparently, building more seems to be the answer. I'm dying to see how this city will look like in a couple of years.

JUNKSPACE

Yes, Skansen (a miniature Viking village) is incredible, because it provides visitors the opportunity to go back in time and explore pre-industrial built environment. But one might question the validity of such an open-air museum. Monuments of monuments of meaning lost.

Infrastructure penetrates the waterfront, and a city of junkspace ensues. Reminds me of the chaos of South Bank in London. It would be interesting to see how the city deals with this leftover space, which I think has a lot of architectural potential.

STOCKHOLM IN 15 SECONDS

ARC500.2: When in Rome...it's impossible to outdo what the Romans already did.

The day we spent in Rome was life-changing. Not only had my friend and I visited the Colosseum, Musei Vaticani, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Pantheon all in one day, I was also surprised to find my notoriously lazy self sketching like a maniac. The spaces themselves demanded more attention than just photographs, I think. I sketched like a madman until my fingers were numb, and until I felt pain in both legs from awkwardly standing for hours.

I can never wrap my head around ancient Roman architecture, and how many of the people who took over after the Roman Empire had disintegrated (the Saxons in London, for example) seemed to go back to antiquated approaches of building, because they were also too perplexed by Roman engineering to know what to do with these magnificent concrete structures.

A Pantheon-like space in the Musei Vaticani.

Gah! I can't tell what's relief and what's painting!

Bramante double helix staircase in the Musei Vaticani (Giuseppe Momo, 1932)

On towards St. Peter's Basilica. This sketch was particularly difficult because we started at the left side of the line wrapped around the basilica, and quickly moved across to the right (and therefore changed perspectives).

The colossal monstrosity that is St. Peter's Basilica. Seriously, you can't even begin to imagine the scale of this until you come up to it and realize the column bases are taller than you. (Michelangelo, Donato Bramante, Carlo Maderno, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1626)

And, even though it's larger than human comprehension, it's also easily the most ornate and detailed building you'll ever encounter.

Climbing the cupola. How weird that there are renovated stairs with modern dimensions...

The view from the top of the cupola. I'd like to believe that we were so high up we could tell that the Earth is round. (But most likely it was because of the camera's distortion.)

On another note, can someone tell me where I can get some of these Roman trees? They's so poofy and perfect for renderings.

Some sketches of the Pantheon. We saw the oculus change from its daylit mode to its night-time mode, which was fun.

Obligatory touristy photo to end this post. We didn't have enough time in Rome (we did all this in a day!) to get into the Colosseum, but even the exterior is awe-inspiring. I still can't believe they used to flood the stadium for naval battles. Is this real life?

ARC500.2: Cool House

Shortly after the Koolhaas lecture last night at the AA I was struck with an intensity of emotion that made my hand literally tremble as I tried (and failed to) take zoomed in iphone photos of Rem Koolhaas and his bffl Zaha Hadid. My pen was shaking as my handwriting deteriorated into a series of scrawls as I formulated a question about whether or not the Digital can be hybridized with humanity. He looked me straight in the eye and answered yes, that he thinks this process is already taking place. But I wonder then why there was humor in mocking people who have unquestioningly accepted technology into their lives. It seems that there is still the separate entity of "the digital," so much so that it is given character and identity as a collective thing outside of and completely juxtaposed to the human body. Therefore, when we see a Japanese person using a high-tech toilet that calculates our excrement patterns, we can't help but chuckle. But the truth is we have given birth to the Digital. It came from the human mind, yet we do not accept is as any way associated with humanity. The digital incites fear although its original intention was to surpass fear, the oldest human emotion associated with mortality.

More sustainable, more long-term thinking, more 50 and 100-year plans ahead with the help of the Digital--what's to say that this is the right solution? We are trying to command timelines far beyond the scope of the human body. The real control we have, if any, is over these individual bodies that fall back into the ground when we die. 

In a way, this era is trying to achieve monumentality through the command of time, because that is a far more effective and profound medium than space. Instead of just building big, we are building to last. We're trying to territorialize the future by using predictions and we're encroaching on the past through re-writing and redefining history. But what we perhaps forget is that Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral (~1675) did not command respect because of its sheer size, but through careful proportions and perspective. St. Mary-le-Bow (1680) draws attention to the stone steeple that marks its identity, but the majority of its functional space is quite modestly built in brick and hidden from its public sight lines. Jean Nouvel's One New Change (2010) is a building to look from, not at. In this way One New Change is given significance not by aggressively competing with St. Paul's, but by lavishing the latter and giving it alternative views, reflections and circulation. By lengthening the vertical view, Nouvel creates new meaning in going up and down a transparent elevator, so that it questions what sees and what is seen. These techniques show a thoughtfulness about the art of building that lasts--it is knowledge, not information, that can be eternal.

Transformative Spa Thoughts

The first spa visit of my life was today, and now I feel the best I've ever felt in ages. But the day didn't start out quite so well.

The morning was restless, from making a mistake booking my 7:30a yoga class (they told me I wasn't on the roster) to handing in a paper that I had originally intended to complete last night, to finally finishing my sample page and resume that I had put off for so long. I was working in a great fury because I had figured out that someone I had such a heated debate with a couple weeks ago at an alumni event, who preferred to call himself a "designer" rather than an "Architect," who agreed that architecture is not about "buildings," actually works for one of the largest corporate firms in the world: Foster & Partners. Upon seeing that the clock was moving faster than anticipated towards my appointment time, I rushed to gather all of my belongings (which for some reason always manage to spill out in a radius of no less than 5 feet around me), and headed out the computer lab with my backpack, gym bag hooked on left arm, and my waterbottle, hat, scarf, and a bagged lunch in my left hand. Trying to force the door open clumsily didn't turn out so well, and in response my yogurt exploded inside the paper bag and drenched my lunch in a lovely white goo. I tsked and rode the elevator up trying not to think about how much I needed to use the bathroom because I had forgotten to use it all morning from concentrating so hard on work.

As soon as the glass doors of Faraday slid open, I rushed out in my characteristic stomp and nearly knocked down everyone that was in my way. (Tough luck.) I've noticed that my pedestrian road rage is particularly bad in London for some reason. Maybe because of all the fucking tourists (of course, my entirety of four weeks here had long expelled me from that category). 

Upon arriving at the bus stop in Holborn and realizing I had just missed the 243, I pulled out my salad that had been drenched in yogurt and started eating it in the street (not before spilling some residual white gunk on the sleeves of my brand new coat), getting stares from the proper British people wearing their proper British shoes and behaving in their proper British manner. I habitually sweeped up my phone from my coat pocket to check the time. Only ten minutes until my appointment. The next bus when I boarded, much to my delight and others' inconvenience, skipped some stops due to renovation and arrived a bit earlier at my stop than expected. Finally, I hopped off the dangerously large step onto the street ("kneeling buses" aren't so common in London), and resumed my race-walking stomp to my spa, conveniently located in a large building complex occupying the center island of a roundabout with no visible pedestrian crosswalks. Superb. I sprinted across the street hoping not to get flattened by the same double-decker I had just alighted. 

Proceeding into my spa appointment (located on floor -4, deep in the dungeons of the complex) was incredibly stressful. I remember being scolded for being "late" one minute after the designated time, and of course the receptionist didn't forget to mention that we were off to a "late" start after I arrived, panting, four minutes after 1pm. Then she handed me a questionnaire to fill out, which asked for a detailed description of my physical condition. I was in the middle of constructing thoughtful answers when the masseuse came to greet me in all of her four-and-a-half feet of grace and dismissed the paper form entirely. How many times have I so earnestly filled out a form that meant nothing to the recipient? 

Upon entering the massage room (dimly lit, and minimally ornamented, as expected), I saw a bed that was covered in many layers of towels. I was instructed to take a minute (indeed, it was no longer than precisely a minute) to strip down to my underwear, and "pop" my bra off. "My bra doesn't pop," I wanted to say. "It's a bra for lazy people." I wondered if everybody else who came to the spa were hardworking people whose brassiers "popped" off. The whole Valentine's Day fiasco still echoed strongly in my imagination and I imagined silly people popping their bras off left and right.

The masseuse walked in on my awkward moment of trying to climb onto the massage bed, and without the slightest expression of surprise she quickly pulled the topmost layer of towel over my back, almost surgically. I noticed the vanity over in the corner opposite the door, took a deep breath as I placed my head face down onto a pillow she handed me. Then I proceeded to suffocate while simultaneously being overtaken by the irrational fear that my eyebrow piercing was going to explode. The room didn't smell like anything, just warmth.

Upon lying down I realized I didn't know if I should be responsive or let her do all the work, lifting my leg and fiddling with the positioning of my appendages until they were aligned in the correct position. I suddenly realized that this must be what corpses go through when they're subjected to autopsy. In the spirit of the exercise, I let myself lay there like a chunk of meat being inspected as the masseuse lifted the towel in portions to reveal whatever body part she was working on. I wondered if seeing the whole body all at once would be too sexual, whereas body parts are okay even if my buttcheeks were hanging out of my underwear. She used her practiced hands and applied continuous pressure to each limb so that it felt like small waves of the ocean welcoming me back to, a weird mismatch with the foresty soundtrack that was playing from tiny speakers. My eyes were closed, but I could sense when her hands were about to touch my skin before they even made contact, and shivered as they slid down my back, up my calf, down my forearm, up my shoulders. Then, out of nowhere, when I anticipated the same rhythm of sweeping motions that she had primed me to expect, came a hotness that danced on my skin and made traces of the history of its path through the lingering warmth I felt only after the stone had left my skin. One stone in each hand, used the stone to mediate her hands and the subject of her technique. Sometimes the stones clicked together gently and it was curiously soothing. When the hot stones first made contact with the bottom of my foot, I wondered if I would get burned. But then I remembered that she was using her bare hands to touch the stone that I felt only momentarily, and in that moment I decided to place my trust in her, simply reclined further into my pillow and relinquished control over my body.

When the final song on her playlist came on I felt an emotional heaviness that I noticed before I even realized what I was hearing. Backtracking the source of the feeling, I remembered that I had once played a horrible rendition of this orchestral work in my high school band. Nobody in my class had the patience to play what we thought was such a long and boring piece, but as I hear it this time I am able to mark the subtle changes in the color of the chords, long weeping breaths of sound that flow organically and powerfully. At what point, which exact moment did I gain this emotional depth appreciate this piece? From nothing to something, but when?

As I walk out into the sunlight, the brisk winter wind tickles my exposed skin, and I find it delightful that I feel so unencumbered. I decide to relish the direct contact I have with nature (instead of cursing at how cold it is as I would have before this spa appointment), and walked towards the light reflecting off Big Ben in the distance. The afternoon sun was strong and low and the city maintained its presence.