Being Here.

I stood in the garden this afternoon and looked around at the heavy summer growth. I looked at the trees by the lane, at the fields of high-grown maize across the hedge, and at the high hills beyond the river valley. I looked at the sky, now turned grey after weeks of sunny weather. Two birds flew across it heading north.

I felt a strong sense of being here; nowhere else. It struck me that if I’d made one different decision somewhere back in the sands of my history, I might not be here. I might be somewhere else, or maybe nowhere at all.

The thought has occurred to me before, and I suppose the same thought has occurred to just about everybody at some time. And yet it’s an oddly profound thought, and what was different about today’s example was the intense clarity and strength behind it.

I think I might be turning into one of Shirley Jackson’s neurodivergent heroines.