The Echo of a Hand

I was walking home from the grocery store earlier today when I saw an older couple crossing the street. They weren’t holding hands, but they were walking in such perfect rhythm that it felt like they were tethered by an invisible string. It made me stop for a second, right there on the sidewalk. We spend so much of our youth trying to be seen, trying to make a mark, or trying to find someone who will look at us the way we want to be looked at. But there is something much quieter and more profound in the way two people eventually just become part of each other’s landscape. It isn’t about the grand gestures anymore. It is about the way a shadow falls, or the way a person knows exactly how to move so the other doesn’t have to break their stride. When did we decide that love had to be loud to be real? What does it feel like to finally stop searching and just start being?

Javier Morales has captured this exact feeling of quiet belonging in his photograph titled Together. It reminds me that the most beautiful connections are often the ones that don’t need to announce themselves to the world. Does this image make you think of someone who keeps you in rhythm?