Flow, actually

Is...all around us*

You know how after hearing about something for the first time, let’s say, you suddenly start seeing reminders of that thing all over? And you wonder… has that always been there? How have I been moving through the world without noticing this thing?

Sometimes it’s subtle and intimate and personal. I just had a gorgeous conversation about who we are in the summertime and the very next day I saw this gorgeous John Updike quote in a book: “I liked the sun licking the backs of my legs, and the sweat between my shoulder blades, and the violet evenings, with ice cream and fireflies, wherein the long day slowly cooled. I liked the ants piling up dirt like coffee grounds between the bricks of our front walk, and the milkweed spittle in the vacant lot next door. I liked the freedom of shorts, sneakers, and striped T-shirt, with freckles and a short hot-weather haircut. We love easily in summer, perhaps, because we love our summer selves.” (A poetic way of saying ‘hot girl summer’.)

Sometimes it’s in your face. Like the mention of a show, which in my most recent case was The Other Two. Quickly, every ad, every chat, every sign reminded me to watch. I also keep running into people specifically from my early 2010s life. Or the conversation I had last week about some writing work and it turns out that this woman is currently married to a man that my mother dated when I was a kid. So, I called my mom to tell her what a small world it is and her response was “well, that’s weird because I just ran into him for the first time in 20-plus years.” Spooky.

Yet another conversation I had recently (I don’t shut up!) was about all of these coincidences and synchronicities. We talked about how sometimes they, in and of themselves, don’t mean anything specific. That they’re not necessarily a sign to do one thing or another. But, we agreed and are correct, they are almost always a sign of flow. They show up when things are flowing and moving. When things are, quite literally, coming together.