Reflections

I wanted to see a cockatoo before I left.
A red or a yellow tail to say goodbye.

I watched the trees for a week.
Listened for that wailing call that carries further than they do.
Nothing came.

Then a relative met a stranger by chance.
Someone who collects feathers.
They put me in touch.

I asked for a goodbye.
I was given something lighter to carry.

A week ago I was her.
Same road. Same camera. Same hope of red-tails.

Today there were a hundred of them.
I was still packing up when she pulled in.

Blue car. Window up.
Camera at the ready.

I put mine down as I drove past.
Heard the same silence she was about to hear.

She'd scan the same branches I scanned last week.
Drive the same road home with nothing.

She just didn't know I'd been her.
That the calling had already happened.

Sometimes in the pause between thoughts, you catch it.
A stillness that was already there before you arrived.

Not thinking. Not deciding. Just watching.

You didn't create it. You can't command it.
But when the noise drops, there it is.
Quiet. Patient. Unmoved by what passes through.

We spend our lives speaking to ourselves.
Narrating. Judging. Rehearsing.
And forget that someone is always listening.

Not a voice. Not a critic.
Something older than language.

Call it soul. Call it witness.
Call it nothing at all.

It doesn't need a name.
It was here before you had one.

For weeks I noticed them.
A daddy long legs in the corner of the shower. Near the floor. Barely moving.

Each time I wondered if they were stuck.
Instinct said yes. But something held me back.

Today I reached down.
They hesitated too. Legs half-lifted. Unsure.

We stayed like that for a moment.
Two creatures afraid of the same thing.

Then they climbed on.
I lifted them to the wall. They rested. Then climbed to the ceiling and away.

The whole thing took seconds.
Weeks of watching. One small reach.

I don't know what I was afraid of.
But I think they were afraid of it too.

You're sitting somewhere ordinary.
A bench. A train. Your own kitchen.

But you're not really there.
You're rehearsing tomorrow. Replaying yesterday.
Treating now like a layover between moments that matter.

We turn the present into a waiting room.
Somewhere to pass through until the real thing arrives.

But the meeting you're waiting for?
The version of life you keep deferring to?

It doesn't exist yet.
And when it comes, you'll be somewhere else again. Planning. Worrying. Waiting.

The only room with no walls is this one.
The only moment you can actually live in is now.

You're not early.
You're not between things.

You already arrived.

Someone grabs your arm without warning.
You pull back. Instinct. No thought required.

The body knows how to protect itself.
It doesn't ask permission to resist.

But the mind has no such reflex.

We hand over our attention like it costs nothing.
Let anything in. Sit with whatever arrives.
Rarely ask whether it paid to be there.

The body can be pushed. Crowded. Cornered.
The mind is different.

No one gets in without your permission.
It's the one door only you can open.

And yet we act like it's public space.
Let opinions queue up. Let noise settle in.
Treat the only thing we control like it belongs to everyone.

Your mind is the one room with a lock.
Stop handing out the key.

The traffic jam doesn't know you're late.
The rain doesn't care about your plans.
The setback won't feel your disappointment.

We perform our stress to an empty room.
Like the situation might soften if it sees how much we care.

It won't.

Circumstances aren't people.
They don't negotiate. Don't respond to emotion. Don't owe you acknowledgment.

Every reaction you throw at them lands nowhere.

The only thing that absorbs the impact is you.

Some people walk into a room and say nothing.

No introduction.
No resume dropped casually into conversation.
And somehow you just know.

Then there's the other kind.

Credentials first.
Proof on demand.
Still building a case for themselves.

You can feel the difference in seconds.
One person fills space.
The other holds it.

The need to be heard isn't confidence yet.
It's a rough draft looking for approval.

If you're still explaining yourself to people who didn't ask, you're not there yet.

Real strength sits quiet.
It has nothing left to prove.

Every time I go to Coles, the mirror spider appears.
Different days. Different hours. Always there when I am.

It feels like we move on the same thread.
Some quiet pull that says, now.

Maybe it’s nothing.
Or maybe we’re both part of the same web, sensing each other’s signal.

Some things are only magic if you’re present to catch them.

It’s easy to stare at the past.

To measure where you were, what you didn’t know, and all the mistakes along the way.

But the point is not where you were. It’s how far you’ve come.

The steps you’ve taken, the ground you’ve covered, the growth that carried you here.

The story isn’t in the past. It’s in the change along the way.