Archives for posts with tag: seeing with new eyes

A Useful Sort of Stillness

August 17, 2025 //
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This morning I am waiting for the sun. Well, I’m at least waiting for enough light to easily see the trail. It’s a gray cloudy morning that hints at rain. I arrived at the trailhead before dawn this morning, feeling quite a lot better and eager to walk. On some other morning, the early hour wouldn’t stop me, I’d just grab my headlamp and go…

…I took my Traveling Partner’s truck this morning, and forgot to grab my headlamp…

Parked and waiting for the sun.

No headlamp, no walking (only waiting). 😆

So, I’ve got this moment of stillness and waiting, and a head full of noise (and it isn’t just my tinnitus!) – seems like a good opportunity to meditate and reflect. No pressure to perform, no time-sensitive tasks facing me, just this quiet moment before a walk on a summer morning. Useful. I approach the moment with gratitude; it can be difficult to find a moment of real stillness to pause and reflect. Time well-spent, when used thusly.

I sit with my thoughts, letting them pass through my consciousness, noted, observed, but without clinging to any one thought. I breathe, exhale, and relax, allowing myself to appreciate my own presence for some little while, simply breathing and being. I make room for life’s questions to surface in my thoughts, one by one. I allow them each to move on, some answered, some “for another time”.

I write for some little while, sharing these thoughts and practices.

The sky lightens as minutes pass. The oaks along the trail are silhouetted against the gray sky. Definitely looks like rain… but it doesn’t smell like rain, and my arthritis is not griefing me in any noteworthy way this morning. Maybe it won’t rain? I look down the trail and wonder if I will regret not grabbing my rain poncho? I shrug it off as a concern; the temperature is quite mild and even a drenching downpour would only mean a shower and a change of clothes after I return home. Inconsequential. I’d just be a bit uncomfortable as I finished the walk, and that’s not that big a deal.

I swap boots for shoes, happy that I didn’t turn back over the lack of a headlamp; there is no reason to hurry through this moment. It’s mine, and I can do with it as I please. I look out at the gray hills on the western horizon and wonder again if I have been over there, looking back at this place, ever. It’s just another thought that drifts by, and I let it.

A new day, a new moment, a new beginning.

I can definitely see the trail now. I stretch as I get to my feet and grab my cane. Even the most familiar path may have more to share, if I approach each new beginning with open eyes and a calm heart. It’s a new day, and it’s time to begin.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being

The Parable of the Reading Glasses

July 18, 2020 //
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I am afflicted with nearsightedness. I’ve worn glasses since that was first identified. I’ve chosen not to explore wearing contact lens, in part because the process of putting them in and taking them out is deeply creepy (to me, personally), and I am overly sensitive about things in/on/near my eyes. So, glasses are part of my life. I put them on first thing when I wake, and they are the last thing I take off when I go to bed at night. My vision is sufficiently poor that I can’t see more than blurs, smudges, and vague shapes without them, although I have, sometimes, chosen to read without my glasses, in recent years, because it seems “just as good” or “better than” reading with my glasses on.

I got tri-focals to account for the variations in my vision at various distances (reading, “near-ish”, and far off). My tri-focals seem “good enough”, generally. I have “reading glasses” for reading and using the computer, too; the sliver of close-up reading lens in the wee round glasses I favor is so slim and narrow that it’s actually rather hard to get the angle of my head and the position of my glasses “just right” to take advantage of it. I don’t mostly notice. My neck notices. My back notices. My more frequent headaches tell me about it.

…My Traveling Partner tells me about it, too. Watching me hunched over my phone squinting to read the small print is uncomfortable. Seeing me perched on the edge of my office chair, leaned in close to my computer monitor, still squinting to read the screen is frustrating after years of pointing out that my posture is affected, which affects my pain, which affects my mood, which affects our interactions, which affects our relationship… He’s reminded me a number of times recently to see my eye doctor, get my eyes re-examined, and get new glasses. It’s clear to both of us that I need them. I reliably mumble something about getting that taken care of “soon”. It’s not intended as a brush-off; he’s right. I need new glasses.

…There’s so much shit to get done “in life, generally”… I don’t intend as an excuse, it’s more intended as discontented, frustrated grumbling. I’m “so tired”… That, however, is not an accurate statement of being, even in a subjective way. It’s my short-cut for communicating that there seems too much to do to get it all done “now”. Isn’t that always the case? “Now” is such a brief (and endless) moment… how I allow myself to see “now” as a duration of time definitely influences how much I feel I can do with it. My body and my mind want and need me to “really rest” – it’s been a busy few days. Conflating that with “life” can derail a lot of things I’d like to get done.

…I definitely need to see my eye doctor and get new glasses…

I found my reading glasses, and now, like an absent-minded little old lady (Am I she? So soon?), I hang them from the front of my shirt, switching when needful. Trying to, anyway. I forget. I also wander around still wearing reading glasses while I attempt to do other things than reading… with my regular glasses now hanging from the front of my shirt. lol

There really is something to learn here. It’s about more than the glasses. It’s about the self-care, and also the loving interactions affected when our self-care is poor. It’s about managing time, and about self-awareness. There are lessons to be learned from reading glasses… whether I use them, or lose them while they hang from the front of my shirt, because I’ve forgotten that they are there. Without them, I don’t see the world clearly. Choose the wrong pair, and there’s no real improvement. Time, timing, distance, purpose… there are things to consider, even beyond the obvious self-care elements; the glasses I wear become part of the face I turn to the world, and even facilitate the quality of my interactions with others (however indirectly).

…Sometimes “small” concerns are bigger than we can easily hold in our awareness moment to moment…

This morning I sip my coffee, reading glasses on, tri-focals hanging from the front of my shirt, writing, and giving thought to the day ahead. “What will I want to see?”, “Which glasses suit that need best?”, and lastly “Who in town does glasses that is covered by my insurance?” (New address means, in many cases, new care providers.) One more sip of this now-cold coffee, before I make a second cup, sit down to enjoy my partner’s good company, and begin the day (again).

 

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Categories Allegories, Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Parables, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Some Fall, Some Are Cut Down

January 20, 2019 //
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I was sipping my coffee between moments in the studio when I really noticed; there’s a tree missing from the view beyond my deck.

What I expected to see…

It’s not a great picture, and I warn you now, it isn’t from an identical perspective – and perhaps that’s why it nagged at me so much. Something is different, I spotted that right away, but figured, in the gloom of twilight, last night, that perhaps it was just more winter, fewer leaves, more lights in the distance… something.

…what I see today.

There’s a missing tangle of mostly-dead tree. Obvious as anything could be, once I allowed myself to really see it, absent my expectations. There’s something to be learned from that.

The healthy heart-wood of the stump left-behind, quite evenly cut, about 18 inches from the ground, tells me it was not lost to misadventure or high winds. Willful. Probably well-intended. I feel sad about it anyway, thinking about the owl that had been making her home there. The squirrels using it as a freeway ramp to the tree nearer the deck. The loss of privacy from neighbors beyond. Just… the loss of a tree. It’s painful. Oh, I’m sure a dead tree just hanging out there on the steep edge of the yard, where it suddenly drops off just past the fence, was a hazard of some sort, to something, but… fucking hell. I’m getting a little sick of people just taking my fucking trees away every-fucking-where that I move. Irksome.

There’s much to learn from contemplating this change. Trees fall. Trees are cut. Impermanence is. Non-attachment helps with the pain of circumstantial misfortunes. We have choices. Trees can be planted. Trees sprout. Trees grow.

I sip a delicious afternoon coffee – a perk of having a 3-day weekend, afternoon coffee always feels like luxury to me. 🙂 I contemplate impermanence, and change – and choices. I think about seeing. I mean, really seeing – eyes and mind both open to what may be new and changed. I contemplate acceptance; change can be hard. Recognizing what has changed is not without it’s own challenges. I breathe. Relax, and consider what I am practicing, and what I want to achieve. I think over conversations with my Traveling Partner; this last visit was rich with thought-provoking, inspiring, observations, and discussion. Connected. Insightful. Loving.

We become what we practice. (Remember, “trees take a long time” 😉 )

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, grief, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter

Tinted Glasses

January 16, 2017 //
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I started the morning at a pleasant hour, feeling rested and merry, in a familiar amount of pain, consistent with the cold weather. I sipped my coffee and quietly honored MLK Jr Day, reading biographical essays of great civil rights leaders of color, and about black American, and immigrant experiences of struggling with the American dream. I had considered going to one of the numerous public events, but the icy weather keeps me home today.

I got to thinking about racism and discriminatory biases generally, even peculiar “mean girl” biases against “outsiders” who don’t wear the “right” clothes, or make-up, or use the “right” language; human primates take “fitting in” pretty fucking seriously. Comically so, were it not for how much damage we do, and how we hurt each other. Can we not let go of that? It’s so childish and trivial.

I think about a younger me. It has been a struggle to better myself, to leave my racist upbringing behind, to stop judging others because they are not within the parameters of some bullshit ideal built up in my head about what people “should” be, handed down to me by my parents, or propagated by the media. I’m not the woman I was at 23, at 27, at 32, at 40… Still very human. I still face the woman in the mirror every morning asking how can I take another step toward being the woman I most want to be? How do I treat my fellow human being truly well, and also treat myself truly well?

I saw myself on video the other day. A corporate end-of-year presentation looking ahead to the year to come. I did not recognize myself visually, at first glance; that woman doesn’t look like how I feel when I look out from within this fragile vessel made of flesh. She’s… fat. Not pretty. Not “cool”. Sort of… nerdy. Older. I felt struck by something else; I’m okay with who I am these days. I wasn’t frightened, offended, appalled, or ashamed of that woman on video. I heard her words. I smiled because she engaged me with her passion and ideas. I lost sight of her appearance quickly. I have grown.

A change of perspective can be really helpful.

A change of perspective can be really helpful.

For some time now, I make a point to seek out what is beautiful in the people I see around me. I shut off the dripping internal faucet of subtle criticism any time I catch it dripping, and return to smiling at strangers, wishing them well, and seeing what else there is to see about my fellow human beings on this strange journey. I take advantage of the power of imagination, and life experience, to rewrite the internal narrative I tell myself about humanity.

No, we aren’t all kind people. We aren’t all supportive or pleasant people. We aren’t all “doing our best” to improve the world. Still – there is more to each of us than our worst moments, and there is more to each of us than our outward appearance taken in at a glance by a stranger in an impatient moment. So. I try to see more. I try to see differently. I look for the beauty. I look for the delight. I look for the best of what each stranger offers the world. When I catch myself doing differently, in some very human moment of my own, I imagine switching to a different pair of glasses. Glasses that filter out the ugliness and hate. Glasses, let’s be clear, that filter out my ugliness and hate, and judgmental criticism, and anger, and impatience with the world, and frustration, and pain. I’m human too. Sometimes I need to see more clearly, sometimes that means changing not the world itself, but how I see it. 🙂

What sort of tint is on your glasses? Hate? Mockery? Cruelty? Anger? Criticism? Impatience? Smug superiority? Righteous fury? Resentment? And when you turn your attention from the world to the person in your mirror, what then?

Today is a good day to see the world through different eyes. A change of perspective. Greater compassion. Acceptance that we are each having our own experience, and awareness that the experience I have myself, may not be what someone else experiences, at all. Simple respect, consideration, compassion, and awareness, go a long way toward healing the world. It doesn’t take much more than seeing the circumstances and asking “how can I help?”, without defensiveness, without blame, and without criticism. I’m ready to clean off my glasses and begin again.

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Categories Free Will, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, The Art of Being, The Big 5, winter, Words

Is It Really ‘Black or White’?

February 15, 2016 //
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I’m up earlier than I really need to be, and I have the day off. I’m okay with that; it’s simply more time in my day. My coffee is tasty, and the day begins gently.

This one is a short one this morning. I am thinking about reason, assumptions, and how we human primates build so much of our understanding of the world on incomplete or inaccurate narratives we make up in our own heads. It’s worth giving some thought to, I think.

This image is not a black and white shot.

This image is not a black and white shot.

Very few things in life are as simple as we make them. Very few things are ‘black and white’ – or more accurately ‘black or not black’, ‘white or not white’; the logical rules Aristotle left for us don’t account for the rich tapestry of ‘real life’, and humanity has long since moved on from the limitations of simple Newtonian physics, too. Just saying – allowing assumptions about things in life I don’t (or can’t) really know isn’t just a limitation, it colors my experience a great deal.

Today is a good day for not knowing, and for allowing reliance on certainty to fall by the wayside. Today is a good day to be unsure. Today is a good day to be open to more possibilities, and a broader perspective. Today is a good day to abandon assumptions, and let go of expectations. Today is a good day to be open; it’s a very different world that way.

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Categories Free Will, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, The Art of Being, Words