The Conversation that Stayed with Me - On Being Open to More

He wasn’t a complete stranger.

I had seen him a few times before, moving through the edges of the inn leading the crew with renovations. We had exchanged a few words here and there. Small, practical things. Nothing long-lived. Familiar, but not known.

Until this afternoon.

I stepped onto the front porch to look over the garden beds, deciding what would go where once the planting began. The soil is ready now. You can feel it without touching it.

“I think I’ll plant strawberries this year,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “Closer to the front, where they’ll have room to spread.” “They’ll do well there,” he said.

He had come up beside me without announcement. “They like to be left alone just long enough to take hold, but not forgotten.”

I turned to look at him. “I was just thinking that.”

His gaze moved slowly across the porch, the railings, the beds just beyond it, taking in each detail with a kind of attention that did not feel casual.

“You don’t place things randomly,” he said. “Everything here has intention.”

“It does.”

“You can feel it,” he said quietly, meeting my eyes again. “The care.”

There was something in his expression then, something he chose not to say out loud. Recognition, perhaps. Or the quiet realization that he admired more than he should. And in that same moment, I realized I wasn’t just noticing him. I was drawn to the depth he carried, even in what he chose not to say.

We spoke longer than I realized. About the garden, about growth, about what it takes to build something that lasts. The conversation moved easily, but there was something beneath it, something neither of us named. At some point, the quiet between us changed. It wasn’t uncomfortable, nor uncertain.

Just… aware.

Then he asked, “If someone were to stand beside you here, what would they need to understand in order to truly belong?”

I didn’t answer right away. Not because I didn’t have one, but because I realized I had never required it to be answered before. And suddenly, it felt like something I should have known.

He watched me as if he could see the thought forming before I spoke it, as if he already understood the answer I had not yet given. There was more he could have said. I could feel it. And there was more I could have asked. But neither of us did.

That was the second moment. Not the question. The restraint.

We both understood something was there, and we both chose not to cross into it.

He glanced at the time. “I should go,” he said. And this time, he did. Exactly when he should have.

Later, when I stepped back onto the porch, I noticed something resting near the edge of the garden bed. A small bundle of strawberry starts, tied neatly with twine.

No note.

I picked them up, brushing the soil lightly from the roots, still cool from the ground. He had listened. Not just to what I said, but to what mattered to me.

I stood there for a moment, holding them in my hands, and I understood something clearly.

It wasn’t about him. It was about what I had allowed myself to become comfortable with. The quiet. The routine. The idea that this was enough. And perhaps it had been.

But not everything that feels familiar is everything that is possible.

Something in that conversation reminded me that I am still capable of wanting more. More depth. More presence. More of what feels aligned.

We may not always find what we need. Not because it isn’t there, but because somewhere along the way, we stopped looking.

Or perhaps it has been there all along, but hasn’t been given enough water to bloom.

Not everything that stirs something within you is meant to become something more. But it is always meant to be noticed.

Warmly,
Mika

P.S.
A familiar line appeared this evening.

“When something awakens you, it is not asking to be held onto. It is asking to be understood.”
— Lady Staywell