At first it was just another errand on a day when nothing seemed particularly special. I was standing in line outside a building, waiting like everyone else to deal with some tedious paperwork. The air felt heavy with that mix of impatience and resignation that hovers around bureaucratic spaces. My mind was already elsewhere, rehearsing the tasks I still had to complete, when suddenly a young woman stepped into the open space and began to move. Her clothes were splattered with colors, her gestures light but firm, and there was something magnetic in the way she claimed a piece of the street for herself. It was not about perfection or spectacle, it was about presence. She was reminding all of us that there is a world beyond queues, signatures, and stamps.
Back then, I used to be that girl in some ways. I remember being in my twenties with this unshakable conviction that art was a weapon and a cure at the same time. I wanted to write, photograph, create, disrupt, and most of all, believe. Life felt like something that could be molded through imagination. But the years came with a different rhythm, one of responsibility and survival. I do not complain, it is simply how things unfolded. The practical voice got louder, the one that insists on bills and deadlines and the thousand little urgencies that keep us afloat. Watching her that day was like meeting my younger self on the other side of the street, fearless and glowing, untouched by the weight of documents or the pressure of stability.
Curiously, it was not her performance itself that struck me the most, though it was playful and engaging. It was the mere act of doing it there, in the middle of so many strangers, refusing to let routine dull the edges of her spirit. The children in the crowd were laughing, adults were half amused, half distracted, and yet everyone noticed her. For a moment she managed to pierce through the haze of monotony and demand attention. I admired her without envy, and without any patronizing thought. My admiration was raw and simple. I saw her courage to exist on her own terms and recognized how rare and beautiful that is.
Even now I am not entirely sure what stayed with me the most. Perhaps it was the reminder that art does not need galleries or permission, that it survives in unexpected places. Or maybe it was the subtle sting of realizing how far I have drifted from that impulsive belief in art as a way of living. There was no bitterness in it, only a strange tenderness. I knew I had not lost that part of me completely, it was just quieter, waiting beneath the layers of responsibilities and compromises. She awakened that dormant voice without knowing, like striking a match in a room I thought had gone dark.
Ultimately what she gave me was not nostalgia but recognition. Recognition that the soul still craves beauty, surprise, and meaning, even when the surface of life is dominated by procedures and demands. Recognition that admiration itself is a form of connection, a reminder that we belong to something larger than ourselves. I walked away from that line with my documents in hand, but also with the quiet certainty that the girl had left me a gift. She reminded me that art is not just about changing the world, it is also about keeping alive the parts of us that refuse to settle. That is more powerful than I had remembered, and I am grateful she crossed my path on such an ordinary day.
