Many people believe that there exists in the world’s coordinate system a perfect point where time and space reach an agreement. This may even be why these people travel, leaving their homes behind, hoping that even by moving around in a chaotic fashion they will increase their likelihood of happening upon this point. Landing at the right time in the right place—seizing the opportunity, grabbing the moment and not letting go—would mean the code to the safe had been cracked, the combination revealed, the truth exposed. No more being passed by, no more surfing coincidences, accidents, and turns of fate. You don’t have to do anything—you just have to show up, sign in at that one single configuration of time and place. There you will find your great love, happiness, a winning lottery ticket… Sometimes in the morning one even has the impression that this moment is close by, that today might be the day it will arrive.
~ Olga Tokarczuk, from “The Right Time and Place” in Flights (Penguin Publishing Group. August 13, 2018)
Photo: Monica dofa (via Mennyfox55)
Live & Learn 
Wow, this Olga is one to watch…. 🙂
A few days ago I discussed with one of my sisters the possibility of, should I live in Switzerland again full time, buying a ‘Yearly Railcard’, horrendously expensive but allowing the owner nearly unlimited possibilities of taking off at any place, any time, in the whole country. No ticket buying, deciding at the train station where to go, whom to visit, what to explore, train, bus, tramway, ships….. oh the joy of it all! No worries about spending money on a ticket for a trip maybe not strictly necessary….. And then she said the important sentence: I would never do that, I would feel so stressed out by Having to make constant use of this card, about missing out….. And I had to agree – she was right.
No direct relation to your post but this put me right back to my call with sis – and I shall gladly only ‘do’ what I really wish to do, I have nothing to flee from (but my sleepless nights – but even those will be resolved at one stage), I am content with the perfect match of our recent trip to one of our old homes in England’s Southwest where space and the time of our meetings with friends were in perfect synchro… 😉
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beautiful…thanks for sharing Kiki.
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and i feel that we’re exactly where we’re meant to be at any given point in time.
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I think Mary Oliver was talking about those coordinates in this,
“You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.”
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Wow. She is something isn’t she?!?
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I love this, Sawsan… Thank you. Your snippet is exactly what I am trying to express in a post I am writing… so, talk about being in the moment. I was resting my oars, so to speak, having trouble coming up with the next thing to write, so I decided to read some blogs I am subsrcibed to and come upon this. Between you and David, I have found the next part…
Which I am totally stealing, by the way!
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❤
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Swasan; This.Is.it….. magnificent quote. Between you and David we could easily open up a Quote Studio. I’ll be happily subbing 🙂
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Quote Café. And the coordinates are (Live:Learn)
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Show up. Be there fully. Be surprised.
Love it ❣️
Buy that ticket Kiki!
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Yes!
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Love this, and it speaks to my life at the moment. We just bought a house. On Saturday, didn’t know it existed. On Tuesday, it was our new forever home. Even a few hours later and the other bidder would have had it. Weird how things work out. Where are we going? Bam, we’re there…. Excited for my next chapter…. Happy Friday, pal!
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What?!?! Where?
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Sarasota…southward bound in September. 😉
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Wow. Sarasota. What a great spot!
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Wishing you much happiness, joy and fulfillment in your new home. Congratulations Lori – may the ‘good life’ be with you in your new abode, day after day. And may the dogs be adjusted quickly too….. sending you happy New Home Bones 🙂
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So interesting, particularly since I’ve come to believe that there is no ONE right time and place. Each moment is THE right moment, the right time and place. ❤
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I’m with you Pam. Olga is a restless soul. I just shared another passage with Anneli in the comments above that describes his craving for motion.
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I agree with Pam. Life is too short to race around looking for the perfect moment. Every moment could be that. I’m afraid I would have to disagree with Olga. I can’t spare the time waiting (or looking) for the one perfect moment. I want to live every minute I’ve got and enjoy it.
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Olga is a restless soul. I am polar opposite from Olga so I have to agree with you but I understand the point of view. Here’s Olga:
Then they would lead a settled life for the next year, going back every morning to the same thing they had left in the evening, their clothes permeated by the scent of their own flat, their feet tirelessly wearing down a path in the carpet. That life is not for me. Clearly I did not inherit whatever gene it is that makes it so that when you linger in a place you start to put down roots. I’ve tried, a number of times, but my roots have always been shallow; the littlest breeze could always blow me right over. I don’t know how to germinate, I’m simply not in possession of that vegetable capacity. I can’t extract nutrition from the ground, I am the anti-Antaeus. My energy derives from movement—from the shuddering of buses, the rumble of planes, trains’ and ferries’ rocking.
Olga Tokarczuk, Flights (Penguin Publishing Group. August 13, 2018)
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I’m definitely a rooting plant. 😉
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I’m definitely a Potted Plant.
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Nothing wrong with that. It works for me.
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Well the seeds (from my plant) let me fly off once in a while to new places, but I always return to … my roots. 🙂
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Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. A houseboat in Kashmir, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio or Rome — there’s no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment.
~ Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire (Touchstone, January 15, 1990)
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Ditto!
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I cannot help but feel that in the running around searching, we are actually missing those moments. It’s one thing to want and search and another to forget to be in the moment and allow them to come to you. I think there has to be a little give and take…
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Impossible to disagree!
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It is a whisper. You turn somewhere,
hall, street, some great even: the stars
or the lights hold; your next step waits you
and the firm world waits–but
there is a whisper. You always live so,
a being that receives, or partly receives, or
fails to receive each moment’s touch.
~ William Stafford, from “The Discovery of Daily Experience” in Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer’s Vocation (University of Michigan Press, 1978)
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Fabulous, David…
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We can learn to carry those coordinates within, being the right time, right place. We just have to look up from our phones once in a while.
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No kidding!
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