Swallows & Seeds & Promises

On being alive

Last night a friend and I were talking about being alive, about those moments when we really feel that we are actually alive.

Those times when we realised we are alive alive alive alive.

And we can do things and feel things and see things and hear them and touch them and be them.

We live in a world so ever ebbing, ever flowing; so touched by the ongoingness of things only just coming into being— that every day of our lives we are offered something to our senses that we may not have encountered—for sometimes up to a year.

On Wednesday, just as my partner and I were talking about the changes I know are on the horizon for my work in the very close future, I saw my first swallow of the year.

The timing of it felt almost unreal: it appeared above the farmhouse we were driving past at the exact moment I shared