The Moments Were Always There

Memorial Day weekend arrives as the unofficial doorway into another season. A quiet threshold that somehow makes things feel different, weather permitting. One of those in-between spaces that gently separates spring from summer.

What begins to shift first is the light.

The way it paints itself across the day.

I’ve pulled out the deck chairs and the little bistro table to go along with them. The umbrella is back too, although these days I find myself wanting to feel as much of the sun as I can.

There are more people outside now, trying to gather in all the time we somehow seem to miss.

This week, while scrolling through my camera feed looking for a photo for this post, a couple of flowers found their way back to me.

I remembered how intentional it felt to notice them just a few weeks ago during a visit to the garden center.

One carried a dramatic glow of sunlight that made it feel almost lamp-like, lit from within. Another held a quieter message of companionship. Two flowers side by side, one leaning slightly behind the other.

Ordinary moments, really.

Yet they felt strangely familiar.

Not because I had seen them before, but because something deep inside already trusted that I would eventually come upon something worth noticing.

These are the kinds of moments that stay with me more these days.

I remember when paying attention felt like work.

My mind wandered. I distracted myself. I had to remind myself to slow down long enough to notice what was right in front of me.

Slow down.

Look.

Listen.

Notice.

At times, even that felt like too much effort.

But over time something changed.

I became interested in the way morning light transformed familiar places throughout the seasons. The different sounds wind carries depending on the day. A stranger holding the door open for just a second longer than expected.

And then there were the flowers.

Leaning to the left. Leaning to the right. Bowing down. Reaching upward. Sometimes looking as though they were caught in mid-conversation with one another.

What once felt like effort slowly became habit.

And after enough repetition, habit settled into ritual.

At some point I stopped going into the world hoping something meaningful would happen and began trusting that something meaningful would reveal itself.

Not because anything magical was happening.

Not because moments suddenly arranged themselves for me.

The lens had changed.

The world had not suddenly become more beautiful. My way of seeing had simply become more open.

The moments had been here all along.

Perhaps that is the quiet gift of paying attention.

Over time, our noticing widens. We begin anticipating wonder, not through grand gestures, but through ordinary life.

A reflection in a puddle.

An unexpected conversation.

Light finding its way through flower petals.

A moment that somehow feels familiar before it even arrives.

And maybe that is the point.

These moments are not rare.

They were never hiding.

They have been patiently waiting in plain sight.

The change happens in us.

At some point paying attention stops being something we practice and becomes a way of meeting the world.

And so, as another summer quietly approaches, maybe this invitation is enough.

Not chasing bigger moments.

Just noticing the ones already here.

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

— Mary Oliver

Talk soon…

G