Reflections

You walk in before anyone's spoken.
And you already know.

Someone in that room is carrying something. You felt it at the door.

We act like our inner state is private.
Like the worry, the tightness, the low hum stays contained.

It doesn't.

People read you the way animals read weather.
Before language. Before eye contact.

Anxiety travels without permission.
So does calm.

You're always transmitting.

Pick your frequency.

Seven mornings in a row. Same branch. Same time. Same call.
Cah.

It stopped being background noise around day three.
By day six it felt pointed. Deliberate. Annoying.

Ravens don't waste words. One syllable. Blunt.
Somehow always at exactly the moment you'd prefer not to hear it.

Like it was pointing at the thing I kept filing away.

This morning: nothing.

No call. No reminder.
Just the thing I already know I have to do.
Louder than ever.

The people with the cleanest records stayed near the edges.

They kept things tidy and safe.
Never made the big swing.
Never said the thing that might come back.

You can't get a call wrong from a safe distance.
Can't misread a room you stayed outside of.
The record stays clean when the stakes stay low.

Errors are a trail. Every one marks a place you actually went.
Every mistake you avoided is also a moment you weren't in.

A clean record is its own kind of loss.

Two ravens on the power line.
I give them the nod.

"Huginn. Muninn."

Nothing.

I do this every time.
Any pair. Anywhere.

It's never them. I know that.
But I can't not say it now.

The problem is I've been doing this for years.
Hundreds of ravens. Same names. Same confident nod.

What if I've planted something?

Two birds who were perfectly fine with their lives now awake at 3am wondering if they've forgotten something important.

All because some bloke kept saying the wrong names.

They're probably in therapy.
I hope not.

You write something plain.
It says exactly what it means.

Then the edit begins.
A fancier word here. A softer phrase there.
By the third pass it sounds impressive.

And hollow.

Ornament is armour.
We dress up words not to clarify but to cushion.
To leave somewhere to hide if the reader pushes back.

The plain version didn't need saving.
You just didn't trust it.

The new thing wears off.
The upgrade settles.
You’re back in the same head.

Money feels like a solution because it measures cleanly.
Numbers go up. Doors open. Life gets easier.

But the ache underneath doesn’t accept dollars.

Doubt doesn’t check your bank balance.
The voice that says you’re not enough can’t be paid off.

The outside can improve your circumstances.
It just can’t do the inside’s work.

That work runs on a different currency.

You don’t pay for it.
You show up for it.

You spot them across the room.
A face you know. A laugh you remember.
Time folds for a moment.

These are friends you haven’t seen in years. Life drifted. Calendars filled. Distance did what it does best. And yet here they are. Older. Familiar. Still them.

It’s easy to let the moment slip past. To half-listen. To check your phone. To rush the catch-up like there will be another one soon.

But there might not be.

Some reunions don’t announce themselves as rare. They just arrive quietly. Then disappear back into memory.

Presence is the difference between a meeting and a moment worth keeping. Eye contact. Stillness. Letting the conversation breathe.

Because the real loss isn’t time passing.
It’s missing the time you were given.

Pride can make you stubborn. You keep tinkering, thinking you’ll figure it out.
Hours pass. Nothing moves.

Then you ask someone who’s done it before, and in two sentences they solve it.

It’s not a sign you’re less capable. It’s a shortcut to learn faster.
Expertise exists so we don’t all have to make the same mistakes.

Let people help you grow.

Someone pointed out I could drive there. Another said I could walk across the oval.
Both were right. Both faster.

But the longer path curved beneath trees. Birds flickered between branches. Flowers lined the edge.

I realised how quickly I look for shortcuts, even when there’s nothing to save.
Not every path is meant to be optimised. Some are meant to be enjoyed.

Anger building in me, sharp and restless. Then I noticed the trees bending outside, the gusts rising like a chorus.

What if the wind could carry my anger for me? What if the storm outside was big enough to hold what I couldn’t?

I let it go, and I felt lighter.

Maybe nature is always offering this. Rain to take sorrow, rivers to hold restlessness, sunlight to magnify joy.

It’s a quiet exchange, constant and unseen.

Maybe we were never carrying it alone.