Visiting a friend who moved to Australia led to a trip with new friends to Kuranda. Others showed me a local bird, and I showed someone the photo, and she identified the crank. Three days later, I saw a real one, and then looked it up, and it led to the Olympics, and the history of Australia, and post-WWII housing booms, and… those all connected to other things I knew.
You can do this, too. You might start with a bird and a clothesline, or it might be any other two things on this planet, or off.
Bush Stone-Curlew
photo by Sandra Dodd