These are the things I notice.

A man writing in a leather journal at 30,000 feet, and me wondering what could matter enough to write by hand in the sky. An empty seat where someone used to be. A leaf pressed into a palm on a rainy walk. The flight attendant whose name I made a point to catch. The moments most people move past without a second look.

I’ve never been able to move past them. I watch. I remember. I write it down, because the noticing is the whole point — the small proof that we are here, together, for a little while.

Observation first. Reflection second. Written when something is worth saying, never to fill a page.

Read on.