The Right Spot: Witnessing All Kind of Realities
Vast mornings have a way of settling into me before I even realize I am awake, and this one arrived with that kind of clarity that asks for attention without raising its voice. I found myself looking at a lone bird resting on a tall metal pole, its yellow chest catching the clean blue of the sky. There was something almost stubborn in its stillness, as if it knew the city below would never slow down for anyone, so it created its own pause. I felt an unexpected pull toward that quiet defiance. Maybe because I spend so much time moving from one responsibility to the next, I tend to forget the simple right to sit still. Watching the bird linger made me feel the weight and freedom of a small moment that refuses to become noise. It felt like standing at the edge of something honest, where nothing tries to be more than what it is.
Rare walls have this language of their own, a mix between erosion and memory, and I have always been the kind of person who reads them without meaning to. Later that afternoon I walked past an old wall marked with fading words that once tried to summon hope for a place that keeps reinventing its struggles. The paint had cracked long ago, turning the message into a fractured reminder of promises that stayed suspended in time. A man walked by with his backpack slung low and a soldier approached from the opposite direction. They never looked at each other. They simply crossed paths in front of the same broken plea. It struck me how the wall had more to say about this city than the people who passed it. Maybe these surfaces become mirrors only for those willing to stay long enough to notice. And there I was again, collecting stories that no one asked me to gather, but that seem to stitch themselves inside me anyway.
Something always softens in me when I sit at the park with my child nearby, especially on afternoons that hover between warm light and the threat of rain. There is a comfort in watching her play while I rest under tall trees that feel older than any confusion I carry. The grass, the sound of children, the scent of dust rising because someone ran too quickly all of it blends into a reminder that I am allowed to breathe even when the world feels heavier than I expected. I catch myself imagining the future she might build, and the one I still owe myself. Motherhood can stretch both fear and hope in the same heartbeat, but in that park I felt something closer to calm. Maybe it was the way the day shifted slowly, offering enough time to acknowledge what I want without needing to confess it to anyone out loud.
Gentle doubts follow me everywhere, especially when I look at the city through this habit of observing everything as if it were a sign. But the more I move through these streets, the more I understand that not every scene is meant to guide me anywhere. Some are simply there to remind me that reality is layered. The bird, the wall, the woman sitting in the park with her bag resting beside her, the child trying to climb a blue metal structure. None of it forms a perfect narrative. Yet all of it feels like a quiet collection of truths that coexist without negotiating space. I guess I have grown into someone who accepts that meaning is not always dramatic or defined. Sometimes it is a breeze that touches the back of your neck before you notice it came to say something. Other times it is only a presence that sits beside you and asks nothing.
Keen as I am on trying to find the right place to stand in my own life, I realized today that the right spot is rarely a single location. It is more like a shifting point where awareness meets humility. I stand in these corners of the city and witness realities that do not belong to me, yet shape the way I understand myself. The bird teaches me pause. The wall teaches me endurance. The park teaches me tenderness. And in all of it I find a version of myself that is both grounded and searching. I do not need every moment to transform me. I just want them to be true. And when I gather them quietly like this, when I let them settle inside without forcing meaning, I feel the simple honesty of being a woman moving through her city, aware of her longings and her future, grateful for the chance to see what most people walk past.