New Eyes
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. –Marcel Proust Writing my introduction yesterday reminded me why I moved to Florida, and I realized I haven’t been to the beach in quite a while. Wednesdays are my days off, so after I dropped my daughter off I drove to the beach for my run. It was like I was seeing it with new eyes- or, at least old eyes that I haven’t used in a while. When I first moved here I used to look around and think “I’m so lucky- I can’t believe I live here!” Now it seems like all I do is complain about the heat, so it was good to appreciate the fact that I live right near the ocean and DON’T HAVE A WINTER ANYMORE. After my run, and a swim in the ocean, I continued on to do errands. As I made the rounds, I thought about my NaBloPoMo theme, “Every Day Counts.” It almost feels like it’s cheating to do it in November. It’s easy to be present and appreciate each day during the holidays. My tea looks like this: And the parking lot of the grocery store looks like this: I don’t even need new eyes! The world is doing all the work for me. But what happens when the holidays are over and everything goes back to normal? I’m remembering a Christmas years ago- my daughter was three and my son was nine. One evening the three of us went for a walk to look at all the houses decorated in our neighborhood. We walked along exclaiming “Look at that one! It’s Santa! Ooh, it’s the Grinch! Look, these people have an entire nativity scene on their roof!” As my son and I ooh-ed and ah-ed over all the decorations, my daughter bent down to look at something on the sidewalk and exclaimed “Ooooh! A rock!” A rock? No, no, no… that’s not Christmas-y! We’re supposed to be looking at Christmas lights! A rock isn’t special. But to her, it was. Little kids have an incredible ability to find wonder everywhere- I guess because their eyes literally are new. My real challenge is going to be appreciating every day when the holidays are over. When all the decorations are gone and everything seems drab and blah I’m going to challenge myself, every day, to look around and be able to say “Ooooh… a rock.” Check back tomorrow to see how the rest of my NaBloPoMo project is going. Am I getting more sleep? Am I doing better at not comparing what I’m doing to something “better?” And how about the part about not letting other people bring me down? All will be revealed!