I had dinner with a friend of mine the other night and she was telling me a story about a woman she works with whose husband suddenly left her. "Out of the nowhere", the friend said. And of course these things are very rarely out of nowhere, but they often feel that way. But while my friend was going on with the story, half of my brain was musing over that phrase. Out of nowhere was what happened to me 30 years ago when a tire crushed my car. Out of nowhere is what happens when we find a lump or hear any tragic news. So in the middle of her story, I blurt out "I hate that place". Of course she is well into the story and has no idea what I'm talking about. So when she asks what place I am referring to I said "that nowhere place where things just seem to happen."

Okay so now she's giving me a strange look that I often get when I blurt things like that out, but she is a nice person so she invited me to develop my thought.

And then I realized that "out of nowhere" is where all things happen, good and bad. It's not just about tumors and divorces. Out of nowhere is where we fall in love. But the truth is we all live right there where none of us have any idea about what's coming around the corner. We tell ourselves we do and that tomorrow will look pretty much like yesterday and we find some comfort in that. But that's an illusion.

And my final thought on the topic was when I realized that nowhere place was really everywhere.

At that point she just sighed and wondered what it was like living inside my mind. I told her I keep having these thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere