Here is the first flower this year on our pond. A sign of hope that spring in definitely trying to break through. There are green leaves also on my rose bushes and they are thrusting forward with new growth .
It was a special moment as I waited for just a few seconds before taking this picture. An encounter with a fresh beginning, right at the start of the promised unfolding .
It's a funny thing the idea of encounter.
How many ways can we make an encounter? There must be many.
I encounter peculiar people when travelling by train to London.
I'll just tell you about one.
For the most part nobody gives eye contact, preferring their newspapers- the Metro, the Daily Mail, the Gaurdian - or their phones on which they watch endless episodes of their favourite soaps or they might be on their laptops and tablets where they tap away as if the world as they know it would collapse around them should they dare to look away from the screen.
But occasionally someone will pick me out , will try to talk to me. Yes, quite odd. And it doesn't depend on weather or not I'm reading my book or looking at my phone. I must have something about me that says, "yes, she looks as if she's desperate to hear my story"
Anyway, last week I had to change trains and while waiting for the next one, standing quietly by myself, a lady started a conversation - just about trains and waiting . As our train pulled into the station i thought ( and hoped) we would go our separate ways.
But no!
She had saved me a seat ( so kind, you might say)!
So, for the next two stops I listened to her tell of her great excitement about her friend's 40th birthday which was where she was headed. They were going to be going to a spa at a local hotel and then back to the house of her friend to watch films ( Paddington Bear, no less), drink Prosceco and laugh , yes they were going to do a lot of laughing , she assured me.
I said very little , but by the time we arrived at her stop it was like she thought we were "best friends"!!
"How lovely to meet you," she beamed, "I hope you have a great weekend."
I said goodbye politely and settled back with my soduko puzzle for the last part of my journey.
So, was that a "real" encounter, bearing in mind that at the end of it she knew virtually nothing about me??
This poem from last April deals with the desire for encounter:
The Mountain
I build a mountain , monument to passions,
Daily piling on more earth,
The soil of attachments,
Keeping me from getting close
To you
So much now stands in the air between us
That space that isn't space
Filled as it is with life's distractions
I cannot hope to crawl close
To see you
And suddenly all seems like dust
A pile of nothing but rubbish
And what's important, I now see
Is how will I get near
To you
So, with teaspoon, I dig at the face
Of the huge mountainside
Little by little arm swinging in rolling rhythm
I throw the dirt behind until I get
To you
