Unexpectedly, two friends arrived for the weekend this Friday. No, not the 2 pups. Not the 2 boats. Although all these were part of the good times together.

I had been focussing in and down in when they arrived. My world view was narrowed to art, hike, garden… Small range. I wasn’t aware of how circumscribed it was until the interruption. I hadn’t pulled back, even a bit, to sense into the broader view:

Life is an ongoing conversation of nature with itself, contradictory and opinionated… And the stream is made of … things that come into existence and pass away. But there is always life, and things feeding… life. (Gaimon)

Just to be stopped, to take time to be with others, to laugh and get out in the boat and get blown off course and be tired and cold, to be with others when you thought you were going to be on your own… And then to know, this is part of the stream. This flows past. It’s part of the coming and going, larger flow, larger picture.

Questions: “So this is what you’re working on.” Opinions given. Ideas exchanged: how I want to do this and maybe that would work better. Or not. I listen, I hear them, see how they are looking at the whole, not the details that transfix me from moment to moment. They feed me with their attention.

The friends will leave. I’ll go back to my art. Step back in.

Buoyed by such a welcome interruption.