These days, an extraordinary amount of the world reaches me every day.
News. Events. Things happening somewhere, to someone. An endless stream of what is unfolding, changing, beginning, ending. I can know what happened thousands of kilometres away before I know what happened to someone I love that morning.
And lately I have noticed something strange.
I miss my family.
Even though they are right here.
Isn't that odd?
I find myself wondering what is actually happening close to me. What are the big things and the very small things in the lives of the people I love? What is moving them right now, today? What is occupying the mind of someone young, and someone older? What are we thinking about when no one is asking?
There is so much coming towards us all the time that sometimes it becomes difficult to see what is already here.
And I think I am hungry for that.
For long conversations that accidentally continue late into the night. Dark evenings with lights glowing in windows and shoes tapping against the pavement. For beautiful, melodic jazz and a glass of something sparkling. For new thoughts, and perhaps old ones that have been forgotten somewhere along the way.
For bright, cold autumn mornings in Paris.
For small, slightly strange inventions that exist simply because somebody thought the world would be a little more delightful with them in it.
For art that can stir a thousand feelings and take you somewhere else without constantly changing the picture or demanding that you keep up. Art that stays still long enough for you to meet it.
Art that asks something of you, too.
A little attention. A little energy. A little imagination.
Perhaps that is part of it.
A meaningful life may not be built from how much of the world we manage to take in. Perhaps it has more to do with what we choose to give ourselves to. What receives our attention. Our energy. Our imagination.
The people sitting across the table.
A piece of music that makes the room feel different.
A painting we do not immediately understand.
A thought worth following a little further.
A cold morning in a city we love.
A conversation that makes us forget to check the time.
Aren't these the things happening in the world, too?
The wonderful, peculiar, endlessly interesting things. The encounters. The thoughts passed from one person to another. The small moments in which something changes, even if no one else ever hears about it.
A conversation between us.
Here, now.