I like to look at things up close.
This shows up in my photographs, sometimes.
I am pretty sure this all started when I was very young. I can remember, lying on my belly, chin in my hands, propped up on my elbows, and looking. I would pull up any old patch of grass, rocks, dirt, or cement, … and look. For a long time on end.
It was something I absolutely loved to do when I was a little ruffian. I can only explain it like this. I would scrutinize and inspect, and try to see as small as I could. And. Then…… then at some point…. I would all of a sudden… realize where I was.
I guess my mind would go way far away… and at some little minute… I would “snap back to.” I can also remember people sneaking up on me during these times. Or… getting in trouble… because I wasn’t listening.
It seems to me that I was just intent on noticing, deeply. Watching. (And probably conjuring up some concoction of stories, or scenarios, in my head.)
Every so often, I do this now, as an adult. Yesterday, I went out to the driveway, and spent a very long time looking at a little tweedle-of-a-thing, which fell off a tree. You know. Tree crap. But it was incredibly complex in its little tiny makeup. So I noticed.
This is only part of how I saw when I was little. I think I had a little bit of intuition back then. Every once in a while, I still have some intuitive feelings about things.
There are all sorts of those “pintrest-like-saying-boards” that say things about seeing like a child. But as hackneyed as some of those sayings can be… a bit of it is true. When we were kids, we were not cynical, or skeptical. We believed in the magical. We looked at things with wonder and awe. It was all so fresh, and good, and believable.
Here is the thing though. The things we were looking at didn’t change.
We did.
There is still so much to be fascinated by… to be enamored with. There is so much enchantment and allure…. all about us. Just look. And see. And wonder. It is all there…… for our eyes only.
“We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.” ― Charles Péguy
Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. — Jonathan Swift