Alone Yet Together

There are moments when, if you are paying attention, you can actually see the present slipping to the past.

Times when the blur of that around us stands still in clarity, just long enough for our eyes and mind to catch up to each other so that we can truly see what it is we are witnessing.

Instances such as the other night when I sat out on our patio in the dark, Archie(our puppy) relaxing on my lap, and just soaked in the breeze. It felt like drinking in time, acknowledging it, storing it for later access as a memory some time in the future.

I was at peace for a moment.

A rarity these days. Anxiety levels are at all time highs, the world seems to be falling into hatred and chaos.

But that moment.

The hint of fall on the night breeze rustling through the leaves, sounds of crickets and our small town winding down for the night, and the small glow of the patio lights casting pools of imagined warmth from the day's sun here and there through the yard.

Time doesn't stop.

It grinds on, unrelenting and unforgiving. It's up to us to freeze those moments. Drink them in as we notice them. Store them away as a memory or if you're lucky, as a photograph.

I realized that night, there on the patio, that we millions and billions of people on this little planet spinning around the sun, are at once never alone and always alone.

We leave our physical mark on this earth, but only for a while before the earth and time conspire to swallow it all back up.

In that I find some comfort. We're all alone, yet together.