Moment of Tangency

This weekend, I found myself wandering through a garden center—the kind that smells faintly of soil, sun-warmed clay, and possibility. It was a brutally hot day. The kind where sweat beads at your brow and your clothes cling to your skin before you’ve even made it past the plants on the outside. I had no agenda—just drifting through rows of greenery, letting color and instinct guide me.

I was wearing my favorite pair of wide-legged linen pants—breezy and splashed with florals that looked like they had been borrowed from the garden itself. A soft, lime green top completed the outfit. It wasn’t anything extravagant, but it made me feel like myself—colorful, comfortable, quietly blooming.

As I rounded a corner near the shaded perennials, a woman—perhaps in her sixties—caught my eye. She looked at me for just a moment and said, “That’s a lovely outfit.”

I smiled, said thank you, and we went our separate ways.

That was it. No small talk. No lingering exchange. Just one brief point of connection—simple and complete.

And then—another.

In the middle of the week, I made a rare run into Target. Since Covid, I usually stick to curbside pickup (just for the convenience of it), but this time I needed a few household things and found myself back in the red-and-white maze. My eyes were everywhere—on end caps and clearance tags—scanning for my next impulse buy.

I barely noticed the people around me. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman and a young girl, maybe ten years old, walking toward me. As we neared, I suddenly turned—and that’s when I saw her. Big, bright eyes. A huge wave. And a smile so wide and joyful it took me completely off guard.

I grinned right back, a wild, happy kind of grin. For a second, I thought maybe I knew her. But no. Total strangers.

And yet, in that split second, something gentle and whole passed between us. A pure, unfiltered kindness.

Later, I remembered there’s a phrase in geometry for moments like these: moment of tangency. It describes the exact point where two curves meet—just touch—before continuing on their own paths. They don’t cross. They don’t merge. They simply acknowledge each other, then move on.

Others might see these kinds of moments as missed opportunities—something that could have become more, if only. But I don’t see it that way. I think these encounters are meaningful exactly as they are, without needing to be anything else. Some moments aren’t unfinished. They’re just brief. And that doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

We often underestimate these tiny collisions. But I’m beginning to think they matter more than we realize.

Not everything has to last to mean something.

– The Wallflower

💬 Have you ever had a “moment of tangency”—a brief encounter with a stranger that stayed with you long after it passed? I’d love to hear it.