I had the absolutely most amazing day yesterday.

As a good amount of people know, I live just outside of Washington D.C. I frequent the city every now and then, and look for some sort of adventure every time I go into the city, or just go out in general. Usually, these adventures are just walking to faraway parks or on a whim showing up to one of my friend’s house. But I think yesterday was one of the best adventures I’ve had.

There was a Facebook post my friend had made I commented something humorous on, which prompted someone to comment saying that we should be friends. A friend request, messaging, a phone call later, I ended up agreeing to meet Emi outside of the Portrait Gallery.

Immediately upon meeting up, we started walking towards an area I wasn’t super well acquainted to. And I saw an area of D.C. I hadn’t ever seen before, that was within walking distance of where I frequent.

Emi told me about a bookstore-restaurant (!!!) so we started walking towards BusBoys and Poets. We had lunch there and talked about our identities and how we see ourselves and how other people see and treat us based on appearance, with assumptions to how we fit a mold. We talked about rejecting the roles people place us into based on assumptions, for both being women and being queer. We also talked a lot about how relationships tend to be based on societal expectations and fitting into roles, which isn’t present when it comes to polyamory and being queer.

As we were leaving, we glanced over at a table and found a flyer for an art exhibit that was having a closing party that night. We had been contemplating a number of places to go afterward, but they were either a different date or had already closed; finding this exhibit flyer was a stroke of luck.

But, as we talked about heading to Safeway grocery store, if this exhibit wasn’t having this party, or even happening, we would have found something else. We would have been able to go out and run into something else that was going on and have a good time with that.

We got to Safeway and headed to the ice cream section because we decided, we were going to make our own frozen yogurt. We got ice cream, strawberry yogurt, nectarines and Gushers and started walking towards where the party was going to take place. We stopped a while later at a church to mix it together and eat it, and then talked even more.

We talked about how the faces of movements are often just people who were in the right place at the right time and that we as a whole forget the people who contribute. We forget how every project is like that: it takes the contributions of everyone to reach its final product.

After we were done with the yogurt we kept heading towards this party and when we got there we were just embraced and welcomed. The artwork was absolutely incredible: they were paintings by Shiri Achu (who’s artwork is absolutely amazing but who’s kindness and spirit are equally as amazing and you should really look at her work), who was born in Cameroon, immigrated to London and is now in the U.S.

Emi, who had been doing this all day, performed some spoken word poetry to the people there, including Shiri, who asked her if she could write and perform something about the artwork. We looked at the artwork then wandered off so she could write something. We weren’t able to go to the Botanical Garden, so I said I would show her how to make a floral formula for flowering plants (because I’m a plant nerd).

I grabbed a dandelion because that could work and as I sat waiting for Emi I noticed an aphid. Then another. And another. And as I twirl the flower around looking for more, I realized I didn't know how many there were from afar. Our day to day lives we see from afar but when we are relaxed and waiting we notice the others around us. We notice the pieces of the whole.

An aphid started crawling towards me, but it wandered away. I wanted to assure it that I wouldn't do anything but I couldn't ensure that. I couldn't guarantee it because it's unpredictable. And I realized that so many things aren't explored because creatures are sometimes scared of the unpredictability of things.

But if I hadn’t gone through in meeting up with this girl I wouldn’t have had this incredible day. I think that we need to embrace more than just the things that are predictable. Yes, it’s important to stay safe and that comes before anything, but experimenting with harmless unpredictability can lead to something so magical. I couldn’t have ever imagined what we would have done had I just stuck to what I was familiar with. And even though I stepped outside of the familiarity, it was still just as welcoming and accepting and ended up bringing me back to a group of people I was familiar with. Because as it turns out, the people I stood and talked to were from my county. We all started talking about what we were doing last Friday, how much we love our proximity to the district but are outside enough that we can live in either world if we so choose and how much we love Maryland.

And I wouldn’t have been able to experience this had I not embraced the unpredictability of the night. I wouldn’t have had this day had I not indulged in a spontaneous decision to meet up with a stranger and have an adventure in the city.

I know I was holding a flower, but it was made up of so many other pieces: the stamen, the individual petals, the sepals, the stem, the aphids, the microspores. And then it's not just the idea or the entire product anymore; it's everything in collaboration with one another working to produce this one end all thing we see from afar, that so many will glance at and not look farther to see the process and the unity, and so many others will not even notice the yellow in the sea of green, or call it a weed and yank it from its spot with a purpose different than my own.

And you notice the detail upon even closer examination and familiarity. There were five aphids- they were bright red against the bright yellow and I did not notice them until I sat down and made it my task to look. The stamens of the flower had curls on either end; like a design you would see in a drawing. And I can't even see all the details of the flower or know all the names of the parts. But that's okay because I can still recognize it, still appreciate it and still wonder at the marvel of our world.

This day wasn't special because of me. This day wasn't special because of Emi. This day wasn't special because of the women we met or the kindness of Shiri or the beauty of the artwork or its simplicity or the incredible experience of finding five aphids against a surface that should have exposed them. It was special because all of these things worked together to produce something beautiful as a final product.

This is why I explained my day the way I did. Had I cut something out, which I may have inevitably done, it would have missed something fundamentally important to the whole.

I said something yesterday I personally found to be insightful and pretty relevant to the day (I'm also just so modest, can't you tell?); that adventure is an attitude. You just need to be embracing the potential of adventure before it can embrace you.