Walking in Circles
The power of seeing anew
Almost twenty-five years ago, when my husband Bob and I first moved to our acreage in Madison County, I took a walk each day with our dog Wolf.
He and I walked every day, no matter what the weather, and often in the hills behind our house. Some days, though, when the weather was bad or time was short, we stayed on our property and simply walked around our house over and over. We’d start down the steps from the deck, around to the north past the frog pond, east toward the highway, looping around to the driveway and back again.
Since the path quickly became monotonous, my goal was to see something different on every orbit. An unusual leaf on a tree, a rock I hadn’t seen before, a clump of violets, a squirrel sitting on the fence. Wolf was an excellent teacher, constantly sniffing out a new scent.
Like him, I was looking, my eyes wide open. I was alert, paying attention to find something different and notice what I hadn’t seen before.
I was amazed at how easy it was to see something new every time. Sometimes it was just a change in the sunlight, which cast a shadow on the ground differently than it had five minutes before. Or the bend of a flower’s petals caught by a breeze. But there was always something. A reminder that nothing stays static. Even if a rock seems unchangeable, the light and rain and snow that fall on it are not.
For a while, I picked up objects from my walks. A leaf, a pebble, a flower. I amassed a small collection, but then I realized those elements of nature belonged where I’d found them, and each moment of noticing had already served its purpose. I didn’t need to keep those objects, I just needed to delight in finding new ones.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that, in my daily life, I walk around a lot with my eyes closed or trained so fiercely on a screen or a word or a task or a belief—especially the ones I think can never change—that I miss what’s all around me. As a writer and a human, I need to keep them open to see differently. The walks around and around the house showed me why.
If I’m looking for peace, it’s in the pebble at my feet. If I’m looking for inspiration, it’s in the play of light through the trees. If I’m looking for comfort, it’s in the unending cycle of moments and days and seasons.
I can always find something new in my path today and tomorrow and the day after that. A new vision is there if I’m willing to look.
And if I keep my eyes open and continue noticing, my willingness to see differently will change what I look upon—just like the rain and wind and sunlight on the seemingly unchangeable rock.
We all get to shape the world we live in.
So keep walking, friends. Nothing stays the same for long.
With blessings,
Deb
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Deb, I am usually blindly chasing a chore to complete without noticing anything around me. Until grief hit me smack in the face. I notice a lot more now.
Your words struck me that when I re-read a book (which I rarely do), I am always surprised by something I didn't notice on the first read. I guess the book, like life, gives us too much information to process all at once; hence, we see things anew every trip, but we have to have our eyes open. Thanks for the post.
I think we all miss a lot of the things around us every day. Thanks for the reminder to open our eyes to catch the little things in life.