TW: mentions of su*cide I thought long and hard about whether to share this story from the waterways. To be clear, I am not trying to sensationalise the experience or make it about myself but truthfully the encounter stayed with me. I kept coming back to it in my mind and asking myself what it meant about timing and the power of simply listening. I don’t know whether there even should be some fable or lesson from a moment like this but I think it speaks to the fragility and beauty of human connection. I have never experienced a gut feeling so strong as I did that day. It was the moment I had finally arrived at my dream mooring after many ups and downs over almost two years. It was the end point of the Orla project and I just felt this overwhelming sensation to journal from the roof (something I had never previously done). It felt serendipitous to be writing about the notion of living a life premised on finding joy ‘around the corner’ when he came walking my way. After the interaction, I couldn’t help but feel that the delays in the project were meant to happen so that I could be there on the roof in that exact moment. I was just where I needed to be. For the gentleman’s privacy, I’ve omitted details and also used footage from a different location on the waterway filmed some weeks later - my apologies if it seems like a mismatch in mood between visuals and voiceover but it didn’t seem appropriate to use footage from the location. For those wondering, I did see the man several times afterwards as he returned to talk and the last I heard, he was doing better. I’m sharing as a reminder mainly for myself to be gentle with the strangers I meet because you never know what someone might be carrying. But also because it felt like an out of body experience to be put in the right place without knowing why. Though I’m not religious, it might just be the closest experience I’ve had to something like it. What do you make of it? #boat #canal #tinyhouse #fyp #foryou
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