There's this thing that happens

It was a small moment. It couldn't have been smaller.
We walked on opposite sides of a street at night. Between us were banks of snow piled up high after the last storm. A rope in her hand angled down beyond my view, suggesting a dog. I knew my dog was also hidden by snow, so I held my leash high, hoping it would explain my spastic movements, stopping, starting again, backing up, lurching forward. We stood briefly facing each other across the street, trading a nod and a half smile while our unseen dogs busied themselves. Each of us was directly beneath a street lamp, in the exact center of the block. I was thinking about symmetry, and how this might look like a modern dance choreographed by dogs. Which it was. And then on cue, we were each yanked back into the shadows, our leashed partners having resumed the ancient, wordless canine business of marking territory, as meaningfully as they could with cumbersome humans in tow.
And that's all it was.

It's a life's work just being fully conscious, staying tuned in to the world around us, but when we get it right, beauty inevitably slips into the mundane. It happens over and over, and is a kind of gift, but it has a terribly hard time making itself known to a cluttered mind. The clarity needed is not unlike what many people experience during moments of trauma. Years ago I was struck by a speeding car and flew through the air before hitting the ground and losing consciousness. Despite the pain that followed, the heightened awareness in that moment was instantaneous and terribly rich with detail. In the days to come, I struggled with the mind-erasing effects of concussion and amnesia, but to this day I can still see the light sparkling through the trees, hear the kids playing in the park nearby, and feel myself floating backwards, then the lung-flattening crunch of windshield against my back.

How many of us ever really know what's happening at any given moment? The knowing is revealed to us in the wake of a thing happening. The experiences that make the most meaning for me are usually visual events, beyond language or quick comprehension. The kind of thing where context and expectation are stood on their heads and you simply live it. It's not that language fails. It hasn't even shown up to the party. Words come later, when you describe a thing to yourself. When you say how it was. You might decide it was your favorite thing, but you have to wait for words to arrive before that can happen. And in the space before language floods the brain with bias, or creative agenda, a moment can expand and possess you, and it's a good kind of possession to submit to wholly, because in a minute you might discover you're simply living. And then it's over. The trick is to cultivate that sort of lucidity without being struck by a car.