Looking At Things

To see differently, BE differently.  See the flower, sit on its petals, wander its satin length, sip its nectar. How else will you know what it is, how it holds the light, and what it means to you? Let your eyes caress its length, penetrate its densities, and reveals untold worlds to you. You lucky traveler.

Unspoken Messages

"Are you ready to order, or shall I come back."

I think so. Yes, I am ready to order. Myself, order myself, reorder my molecules and begin again. Ha, I laugh at the odd approach to the simple word. I imagine a game of chinese checkers with the marbles rolling around until they hit their little circles and stay put, all in order.

"I'd like a mocha, please."

There is a swirl of air currents after the young man as he leaves. He is in such a hurry, but he has nice eyes that look kind. He is not impatient. I see he is moving from table to table, looking for missing forks, unfilled glasses, and guests who need more coffee. He is attentive and quick, and his eyes are warm.

I twiddle my iPhone and look at yesterday's images, taken when I was sitting in a different diner, sitting across from red leather and gleaming chrome, polished steel, a room without life but colorful nonetheless. I look around this room and listen to it.  There are voices nearby, but I cannot hear words. I look at the walls, the pictures hanging askew on the wall, and hear the distant bustle and clang of the kitchen workers.

The flowers in the vase on my table are bright and cheerful, dying to get my attention. Ah, dying. Yes, unfortunately dying little bit by little bit, small degrees of loss of their vitality. I look at them very carefully. It used to be that the colors of flowers and the blossoms themselves spoke messages from a person who gave them to the one who received them. Red always represented love and passion. Roses, daisies, irises and chrysanthemums all had their implicit meaning, conveying something far beyond mere words.

I lean in and wonder what this bouquet of bright life means, what message I would have known if I had lived a hundred years ago.  I fiddle with the flowers, touching their soft petals and delicate coolness. I pull out a few withered and spent pieces. Ah, they are dying to tell me something? A small feeling of their desperate signaling overcomes me. I lean in and detect - fragrance? No. Just beauty, simply beauty standing silently in a vase, quietly perfect.

The young man brings the cup of mocha and sets it before me. His eyes again. I see the warm life in his eyes and the room around him, hear the murmuring people who are eating their food and sipping their coffee. I am glad that it's not quiet.

Seeing It's Not Ordinary

If I learned anything today, it's that there is complex beauty in the ordinary things around me. It sure is easy to overlook them, though, if I take the same route, walk at the same pace and believe that other places far away are more interesting.

On my walk today, I paused and looked at a little scuff of blue paint on the weathered wood, a wrinkle in the glass of the old house on the corner that reflects light in such a curious way. I had to ask:  What am I really seeing? The more persistent question became:  What have I been overlooking?

I had to walk backwards, bend over, crouch down, squint my eyes. I looked from different angles than I usually do. I found it created a sort of visual warp through which I could enter, a way to exist differently, if only through my eyes.

It's funny I think that leaves are green or that flowers are soft and delicate, that glass is flat or that the the sky is blue. Seems like the natural world has all kinds of ways of showing me that it's anything but ordinary.