Simply seeing what is

Today, I saw five small dandelion tufts drifting across my path.

Not the whole round seed head still attached to its stem. Just individual seeds, already released, floating on the breeze.

I probably see things like this all the time without noticing them.

But this time, I noticed.

One floated past. Then another. And another.

Five altogether.

I stopped and watched them until they disappeared.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the sight. The wind had picked up some dandelion seeds and carried them across my path.

And yet the moment stayed with me.

Perhaps it was because of where I was in my own life.

I was preparing for another trip to Morocco while also approaching a much larger threshold—the end of one chapter of my life and the beginning of something I had imagined for a long time but had never actually lived.

There was excitement in that.

There was uncertainty too.

And somehow, on an ordinary day, five nearly weightless little things floating past me made me stop.

I've been thinking lately about the things we notice.

A bird calling from somewhere we can't see.

The way afternoon light suddenly changes a familiar room.

A phrase someone says that stays with us long after the conversation has ended.

Something small drifting across our path.

Most of these things happen every day whether we notice them or not.

But every once in a while, something ordinary seems to meet us differently.

Maybe the thing itself hasn't changed.

Maybe we have.

Wabi-sabi has taught me to pay more attention to moments like these—not because everything needs to contain a message, but because noticing helps us see more of the life happening around us.

I don't know whether those five dandelion tufts meant anything.

I don't need them to.

What matters to me now is that I saw them.

For a few moments, I wasn't thinking about what I needed to finish before my trip. I wasn't trying to anticipate what this next chapter would look like or wondering whether I was ready for it.

I was simply standing there watching something small and beautiful move through the air.

And perhaps some moments don't need us to turn them into anything more than that.

We can notice them.

We can let them stay with us.

We can wonder why they did.

And sometimes, that is enough.