The word reverence popped into my head today — I’m not sure why.

Today, after my first day of school, I was walking home and noticed the way the evening sun descended from the sky. As though she sauntered down lazily from Heaven’s stairs, dusting the air with a sprinkling of her perfume gold.

In her path, lay dragonfruit-pink orpine buds. The sun had brushed her hands through the flowers while on her stroll, as one does in a clothing store to the clothes on the hangers when you’re “just window shopping”.

The way the sun decorated the flowers, as though splattering gold specks with the flick of a paintbrush.

It was the kind of radiance I notice whenever I stare out at the sea when the sun takes another lovely stroll to the water. She brings her sequins as a gift, and they flicker and dance about the surface of the sea’s blanket rhythmically.

It’s these kinds of moments that give me the feeling of: “is this even real?”. Gazing into the ocean’s waves, the way that the sun embraces the flowers in my neighbourhood, the little birds hopping about my feet in Central Park. I always feel anew going to a museum and feeling pulled through thousands of years of history by the hands of those who shaped the chipped porcelain cup, the sculpture, the sword, the painting.

I find myself grounded in these moments. For that window of time, my worries feel a little bit lighter, my feet planted a little firmer on the ground.

Some may call it wonder. Awe. I think all of those words are fitting.

I think the word reverence popped into my head because it’s a sort of wonder imbued with respect. A sense that you’re quite small in this world (in a good way). That the waves will keep waving to the shoreline, the flowers will keep blooming, the birds will keep chirping. Humans will keep fighting, failing, loving and learning, as they have for the past hundreds of thousands of years.

Honestly, sometimes I feel quite silly for being so enamoured with these little things. Why stop and smell the roses when the world and all its catastrophic events feels like a frail Jenga tower, ready to topple at any moment?

To that, I come back to the word reverence once again. To think that I can change the world is a little bit self-inflating. The best I can do in this moment is just appreciate what I have.

To feel wonder for what I have. To feel reverence.