Timing

I am of the opinion that we don't see half of what's around us. At least I know that's true for me. A few years ago I pulled into the parking area of one of my favorite nurseries and parked under a tree that got my attention by the huge fragile white blossoms on it and the perfume they were making. The leaves were about as big as a papaya and approximately the same shape and I thought to myself, "What is this?" and then, "Do they sell them?"
It was an ash magnolia which is related to but not the magnolia grandiflora which stands proudly in the yards of many southern homes (my own included) with its glossy, indestructible leaves which adorn the tree year-round, it's massive white flowers which smell of lemon and the breath of angels.
The ash magnolia's leaves and blossoms are less waxy, less substantial but beautiful in their delicacy.
I bought a small one in a pot that day, about a foot tall, and I planted it in the backyard. It's what they call an "underlyer" which means it likes the shade and I have the shade. In the four or five years since I've planted it, it's grown to be about four feet tall and right now it has two blossoms on it.
I'm as proud of that tree as if I'd given birth to it myself.
Like its relative, the grander magnolia, its blossoms do not last long. Their life is short. Yesterday this blossom looked like the one above:

You can see that in one day's life it has already opened and begun to brown at the edges.
A brief, beautiful life and all the more remarkable because of that.

And if I hadn't pulled into the nursery on the day that tree was blooming, I would probably still not be familiar with this tree. It wouldn't be a part of my life. I wouldn't watch it drop its leaves in the fall, I wouldn't spend the winter wondering what it's spring growth would be like, I wouldn't wait in wonder for those giant, creamy flowers to form and open. I wouldn't have its perfume for a few days in April.

And isn't that life? Timing is all.
If I hadn't been in that bar all those years ago wearing the blue sweater that fell off my shoulder, Mr. Moon would never have seen me, never have asked me to dance, never have invited himself to my house the next day, never have brought me flowers.

And my life would have been so different.

I think about this a lot. When I get in the car to go somewhere and then remember I've forgotten my water bottle and get out of the car to go get it, I think about how I will taking a completely different trip down the same road I would have if I'd remembered the bottle in the first place.
Is this cosmic or just profound? Deeply meaningful or just a blip in the screen of the video of my life?

I don't know.
All I know is that accidents in timing can lead to so many things. What we never would have noticed one day (or one moonshot night) takes our breath away the next.

"What is that?" we ask.
"Can I get one?" we wonder.

"Who is that?" we marvel.
"Will he dance with me?" we think.

And the next thing you know, blossoms are forming, life is started in a new garden, and something (someone) we'd never even noticed before is there with us, every day and our lives will never be the same.