The old city shutters stood open.

Not to admit the world, for the world was already here; only to let it drift through old granite, through warm air, through the afternoon.

Below, children called, trolleys rattled over stone, shopkeepers laughed, voices crossed and uncrossed like birds above a square.

Nothing argued. Nothing needed to win. The street was not divided.

Beside me, a small dog claimed a borrowed mat with complete confidence that love had already prepared it.

I thought of my son.

I thought of all that seems absent, and of all that love refuses to call lost.

The heart did not deny its longing. The afternoon did not deny its peace.

Neither excluded the other.

Then, without announcement, a smile from a waiter, a bowl of water that had not been requested, churros that had not been ordered, a kindness that carried no invoice.

And I understood, if only for this hour,
that there are moments which cannot be bought because they were never for sale;

moments which cannot be earned because they were never wages;

moments which ask nothing except that they be allowed.

Nothing was missing.

Nothing was excluded.

Nothing was demanded.

Nothing had to justify itself.

The 5pm cathedral bells found their place among the voices, and nothing was disturbed.

Time found its place without disturbing the timeless.

The voices still rose from the street below.

The light still rested upon the granite.
The dog still slept.

Love still loved.

And for this afternoon,
everything already was.

• By a dad at CORe at the end of his pilgrimage, Camino de Santiago.