Look and Listen

On my walk yesterday, for some strange reason, I thought about our capacity for looking, for not simply looking, but seeing. I think there is a difference. In mid-stride, then, I took a second to take in the unique beauty of a single leaf on a bush. The tiny frond, just two inches long and an inch wide with scalloped edges, was nature’s doily. It was mottled in shades of green with blotches of deep brown within and at the edges, as though the early season frosts combined with this winter’s drought had sought to suck the very life out of it. Yet it caught my eye, tenaciously shimmering in the misty air having been bathed just moments before with welcome raindrops. It was an eyeful.

Artists and writers see out of necessity and out of habit. It’s engrained. Yet, at times, all of us, I suppose, we are too busy looking to see. It’s a paradox, really and I’m afraid robs us sometimes. The same goes for listening. How often are we too busy telling our own story to listen to someone else’s? How often do random thoughts wrack our brains almost mindlessly, holding us captive? How often do we hear the music but not the lyrics? How many times do we hear the noise of the crowd but not the voice inside us? Do we ever simply stop to listen to the silence? And when we do, what creeps in? Noises. Myriad sounds are everywhere but we have to be quiet to hear.

Maybe it’s because it’s early morning, and aside from random rumblings of the furnace sending warmth into the house that has cooled with the night, that I am listening now to the quiet. Maybe it is because I’m grateful to have singled out that lovely leaf yesterday, that I look forward to seeing a new day. Light is just beginning to fill the sky and today, hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to see again, and will be quiet enough to listen.