To See

You can't see it very well, but those little people at the bottom of that arch are me and Eli.  And, that, is Delicate Arch in Arches National Park.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited Arches National Park with my father, mother and three youngest children.  The first day I got there, my father, me and my two younger boys jumped in my dads jeep and headed to Arches.  As we entered, I was so blown away by the beauty of this arid, dry, red land.  It was amazing with the sunset enhancing the reds and browns of the rocks.  The sky was gorgeous, silhouetting the rocks with blue and white puffy clouds.  I felt as if it was the first time I had seen this landscape.   It was breathtaking.

Awhile ago, I sat in an all women's church meeting and enjoyed listening to a young mother explain an interesting concept.  She said that when she first moved to Albuquerque she noticed so many beautiful things about it. She noticed the gorgeous sunsets, the pretty Sandia Mountains sitting to the East, the arid beauty of the desert and the mild weather and temperatures.  She wondered why now she had to search for that same beauty after living here for many years.  The beauty was not as readily available to her.  She had to take time to notice.  It wasn't that the environment around her changed, but her eye and soul had found the beauty harder to see because of its familiarity.

I wonder why this happens.  It reminds me of the first day I arrived in Japan.  It would be our home for three years.  Everything was new and different.  I took it all in.  All of it.  There were different smells, different colors, different people, different clothing--everything was different. There was so much to see and experience...and I knew my time was limited. It felt like I never lost my ability to see everything like it was the first time the entire three years I spent there.  Somehow, I did it.  Was it because I knew it was limited?

 I recently was reminded of a beautiful article written by Helen Keller titled "Three Days to See."  I love this essay and was first introduced to it in a college humanities class.  She says the following:

At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things.  If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight.  Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little.  The panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted.  It is human, perhaps, to appreciate little that which have and to long for that which we have not, but it is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.

Truthfully, I want to find pleasure in everything that I see.  Everything.  I'm not sure how to do this.  Sometimes I drive in my car and know that there is a beautiful sunset, but can only see the nasty telephone/electric wires hung by the roadside.  This morning, my husband pointed out a gorgeous sunrise to my teenagers as they jumped in their car and drove to school.  They were grumbling that he was making them stop, look and notice.  Later that morning, I told my husband that one of those teenagers had posted a picture to Instagram saying "ABQ sunrise nailed it this morning!"  We both giggled, recognizing that the forced moment to notice made a difference in this child's day.

I love the poetry of Carol Lynn Pearson.  I think she captures the sense of noticing and savoring very well in this poem:

Perspective From Mortality
My life is patterned as the palm
Of a rain-washed leaf, calm
Cut and full.
But I view my life from underneath
Which--like the patterned leaf--
Is fuzzed and dull.

I hope that I may live with an ability to stop and notice.  I want to be surprised by the sunrise and the mountains that have become part of my daily scenery.  I want each beautiful thing I see to feel like it is the first time I had the privilege of seeing it.