2.2.22

Nobody gets the life they intended.

It sounds so grim, right? But actually, maybe it’s a good thing.

I was reading something about looking at times in your life when good things happened, when there were shifts, and suddenly things changed. To try and look back, and think about what led to those changes.

And it’s true, sometimes. There is an invitation, or a trip, or a chance encounter. You didn’t plan it, weren’t expecting it, and suddenly things shift.

When those types of parameters are put on the request, moments pop out of the mist – images of evenings, long ago, perhaps.

In these surreal times, time has shifted. A moment from long ago takes on a clarity that the morass of last week’s minutia lacks.

The air is alight and the game’s afoot.

What chances are the right ones to take? Or maybe – the most difficult thing of all. Doing nothing.

For now.

There’s a certain freedom in not dreaming too.

People tell stories, you listen, you move on, like picking up a book and putting it down again. A few pages – not more.

All the swirling histories of distant lives. Was there ever a connection? Did it unravel, or dissolve, like the vague memories of a night out, long ago, perhaps.

A bus ride, a stop in a gift shop with some time to spare, a gig in a pub. Visiting the sites never seems as real as telling the tale.

And now, here on palindrome Tuesday, a day and date that won’t happen again, at least not for a while, an invitation to quiet dreaming.

Happy 2.2.22. Clinging to numbers in a mysterious world, where the name of a star could be a handhold on a dark, limitless land of possibilities.

The names have changed, though.

Have we?

©Alice Severin 2022