I had a moment of zen on the sidewalk yesterday. It's the same corner I cross at nearly every day and it has never been more than simply utilitarian before. But something about that moment yesterday changed everything. I looked up instead of just allowing my eyes to drift aimlessly along street level and I could see the top of every building in sharp relief against the untainted blue of the sky. There was a breeze - not a full force gale like the sort Wellington normally specializes in - that toyed with me, running the back of its hand along my cheek, smoothing stray tendrils of hair from my face, lifting the heat off my skin with a gentle touch. The sidewalk became a metaphor for everything suddenly. I understood the vast depth of the life I was part of and the future I couldn't reach. I understood where I belonged in nature and why my heart ached in certain ways. The breeze sighed along the back of my neck and the top facade of the building opposite and just down had a rose engraved in it. Backlit by the late summer light on a cushion of blue sky, it seemed like an promise. I was part of something immense and something small simultaneously. Zen. I felt like weeping. My heart throbbed.

... then suddenly the breeze turned into a vicious Wellington-issue howler that literally punched me clean off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic.

Life is a complicated thing most days.