Someone across the street is waving. For a moment, you wonder whether they’re waving at you or someone behind you. Life offers moments like that. Recognition often arrives before certainty.
We feel something before we fully understand it. A person catches our attention. A place we’ve never visited somehow feels familiar. An idea lingers. A piece of work asks to be made. Something within us pauses, recognizing a feeling before we can explain it.
How do I know what is mine to love?
I’ve been living with that question lately. If life truly has an imagination greater than mine, how do I recognize the people, places, and work that belong in the conversation of my life?
Recognition
Years ago, Gary overheard two women talking in a coffee shop. They were describing a beach community that sounded remarkably like the place we’d been imagining for years. He came home talking about “Bismo.”
“Pismo?” I asked.
That afternoon, we began searching online. Within days, we were driving California’s Central Coast. That weekend, we found the house we would buy.
Looking back, I don’t think we recognized the house first. We recognized the community’s essence—a gentleness, a rhythm, a sense of belonging that felt strangely familiar before we had an address.
Before we even knew where we would live, I rented a little mailbox in the heart of San Luis Obispo. It still makes me laugh. Who rents a mailbox before finding a home? Apparently, I do.
At the time, I thought I was preparing for a move. Looking back, I see something deeper. I was saying yes to recognition.
The first house wasn’t our forever home. None of our four San Luis Obispo homes turned out to be forever. Three of them, however, have been within a mile of that little mailbox.
The houses changed. The recognition never did.
Belonging
Looking backward, I see the same pattern throughout my life. Fashion. Gary. Writing. Painting. Word Art. A home. A friendship. An essay.
Each began with the same unmistakable feeling of familiarity.
I know you.
Somehow, I know you know me.
I want to know you more.
That feeling has never promised permanence. Some conversations become lifelong companions. Others become part of us, even after they’ve gone. I have learned to be grateful for both.
Life no longer feels like a series of choices. It feels like a conversation I want to embrace. Something within me recognizes something in the world, and the world, in turn, seems to recognize me. I don’t always know where that conversation will lead, yet I know when it begins.
I notice the wave and smile.
Oh…there you are.
Oh…here I am.