On Choice.

I glance at my fellow passengers set against a backdrop of pink blossom as we wait at a stop for new journeyers to alight. The young and the old, the rough and the smooth, unwittingly haloed by this cerise turn of spring that fills every window on that side of the bus. They can choose how to look, I think to myself, but not how they’ll be seen.

In the rain I watch water droplets chase each other down the glass, zigzagging around microscopic obstacles. They refuse to take the path that seems the most obvious to me, subject instead to unseen forces, as invisible as those that nudge the lives of the pedestrians that shuffle around outside in a blur, out of focus beyond my immediate gaze. They, like me, can choose where to go, but not all of how they’ll get there. They can choose their destination, but not every path they will take.

We are wise to be humbled by those unseen forces that shape our journey and might, even without us knowing, find us momentarily silhouetted against a curtain of pink blossom.