Early in my career, I was on a downward escalator in a faraway airport, grumpy from a missed flight, when I heard a familiar voice calling my name. A friend from high school had spotted me going the opposite direction, across the miles and across the years. After an awkward scramble we met up for a quick hug and hello, and in just those few moments I was re-rooted in my own life, no longer drifting as an unknown person in an unknown place.

This week brought some flashbacks of that feeling as I ran into a long-ago colleague at a business conference. In a sea of anonymous analysts suddenly I was a whole human again, one with friends and feelings and ideas that extended beyond that morning’s financial news. Even better, two different sets of dear friends rearranged their plans so that we could meet in person after a long time apart.

Sometimes it seems that time is not on our side. We are so much in motion that by the time we’ve fully arrived, we are already departing. We are caught in traffic of all sorts, missing connections both literal and metaphorical.

Dear ones, in these blurry bleary times, may we be the ones who stop on the escalator, the ones who call out across a conference room, the ones who cross town at rush hour to hug a friend.

There might be just a moment to spare.

But a moment can be momentous.