Are you all the time noticing things, seeing things that others maybe don’t see? There are things to notice all around you, all the time. If you keep your eyes open and just watch where you’re going, you won’t believe the things you see, sometimes. Mostly it’s little things, the little things that seem to be beneath people’s notice: the way the feathered grasses grow in wavey patterns when there’s a whole field full of them. The way the flowers burst out again when the weather has been cool for a week. The funny face that little kid you passed made at you just before he ran behind the door of his house. The way that cloud looks like a giant slab of ribs. Dinosaur ribs! Did you notice what that person was wearing? My god! what was he THINKING? Did you see that?
It’s most fun to notice something when you catch someone else noticing it, too. Then you get to exchange that special look. You know the one. It always makes you smile, that look, that secret “I saw it too” look. Sometimes it makes you roll your eyes. Sometimes it makes you turn away to keep from laughing out loud. It’s the sort of sharing that two people connect only in the moment for. Then you’re back to your own observation.
Walking is a good pace for gathering moments of notice. They’re not good for anything, well, not anything practical, anyway. But the things we notice fill us up. The things we find worth noticing, or mentioning, or relating to someone later. They all make up a pattern of interest. What kinds of things do you notice? And have you noticed how the things you notice change with your circumstances? I remember when we got engaged how I noticed engagement rings. When I was pregnant: there were pregnant women EVERYWHERE! And where there weren’t pregnant women, there were baby carriages.
For a while, it was dogs. When we were contemplating the possibility of getting a dog, everyone was out walking them. Big ones, little ones, black and brown and white ones. They were around every corner and down every street, in every yard. Actually, they still are. That hasn’t gone away, that noticing.
I notice how the pace of someone walking down the hallway toward my office slows slightly right before they come into sight, so that I know if they are coming to see me. I notice when people don’t respond to my morning greeting. I notice that you cut your hair or got new glasses or lost a little weight. Sometimes I notice the things you don’t say and it makes me wonder if you ever notice mine.
I notice the luster of the skin of my children, how it glows without light and the fine golden hairs on the backs of their necks. I notice how long their eyelashes are and how tall they are now, next to me. It’s humbling to think I was instrumental in producing them.
I notice the changes in our village, the new paving job the neighbors had done, rowans full of berries, the level of the little creek along the snail trail. I notice the year-long gradual change in the pear tree allé. I notice the snails on the sycamore trees after a rainstorm and the arrival of the pied wagtails in the early spring.
I notice things out of place in my home. I can’t understand how the rest of my family can’t seem to see them. How their gazes just glance over, bounce off, bend around objects right under their very noses that need to be put away. It’s uncanny.
What I notice most of all is how much I must miss.
What do you see, looking around you, as you move through your day? Wouldn’t it be nice to have our eyes meet and share that smile?
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