She was just there that day.
A jacket she already owned.
No plan to be brave,
no script for what comes next.
Only a moment that asked
more than was comfortable.
You can see it if you look closely:
the hesitation, the breath,
the eyes that sting but stay open.
Fear didn’t leave her body.
It simply stopped being
the loudest thing in the room.
She didn’t rush forward.
She didn’t freeze.
She stayed.
As if staying
was a small, stubborn act;
one foot still in place.
The color shows up later,
after the fact.
Pink takes on meaning later.
In the moment, she was only a person
meeting what was in front of her
without turning her head.
That’s the part that lingers.
Not heroics, not certainty—
but the choice to keep seeing
when it would’ve been easier
to step aside,
to let someone else notice.
I think about that now, closer to home.
About the moments that arrive unannounced.
The ones that don’t ask for fixing,
only for attention.
For staying in the room.
Maybe this is where it starts:
not with answers,
but with being here.
Eyes open,
heart uneasy,
yet still, taking one step closer.
————————
Written in the hope that noticing might be a place to start.
