"It looks like the inside of a seashell," my friend whispered when I showed her the gallery installation.
I smiled at her perfect description. The flowing white curves, the organic pathways of light - it did look like we'd been swallowed by something nautical and magnificent.
"Can we go in?" she asked.
That was the point, of course. The artist had created not just something to look at, but something to move through. A journey without clear direction.
As we stepped inside, I immediately wanted to rush toward the light at the far end. The quickest route, the clear destination. My efficiency at work.
My friend had other ideas.
She ran her hand along every curve. Doubled back to examine textures. Crouched to see how light played differently from below. What I saw as a path, she experienced as a universe.
"You're missing everything," she said, pulling me back from my hurried pace.
I wish I could say her words instantly transformed me. They didn't. But they planted something that grew later, when a colleague asked why I always seemed to be living three steps ahead of myself.
"Do you ever actually arrive," he asked, "or are you always already leaving for the next thing?"
That night, I thought about the white tunnels, about my friend's hand on the wall, about the space between seeing a path and experiencing a moment.
I've started practicing what I now call "wall-touching." In meetings, I notice the room. In conversations, I feel the temperature of my coffee cup. While waiting in line, I study a stranger's kind eyes instead of checking my phone.
The paths we take matter less than how we move through them.
Where might you be missing the texture of your own life?
With presence, narukimi
