“And it occurred to me, isn’t this what we all want? To be noticed in a gentle, non obtrusive way ~ To be appreciated for the good we inherently possess and have to offer ~ To not be judged by others for decisions we make and paths we choose ~ To be allowed the freedom to just be, in stillness or movement, however we wish within our own spaces? We all move about so quickly in the daily chaos that is our lives. Take a moment to breathe deep, notice, appreciate and share the beautiful, unusual, unexpected gifts that are all around you. They are there…just open your eyes and …watch.”

 ~~~Shell Rimmel ~~~

I woke quite early this cloudy, cool July Sunday morning and found myself in a pensive mood. As I coffee’d…and it did taste extra good…I picked up my iPad and, via Pinterest, I continued to discover, explore and dissect the peaceful watercolors of Shell Rimmel. Eventually, I came upon one of her blog posts https://www.shellrummel.com/blog/?offset=1328986140000, scroll to Free Style, July 7, 2009, that includes the above quote.

Watch.

Listen.

See.

These acts, or the absence of them, are our way of making sense and nonsense of our noisy, complex world, of skewing our perceptions or of centering us or throwing us helter skelter into stressful oblivion, all humanly possible from one minute to the next.

Countless books have been penned on “living our best lives” and finding “inner peace.” I’ve flipped through a few and have tried meditation, yoga and drinking to the point where I become the dreaded obnoxious philosopher. During my working life, juggling multiple balls with razor blades impaled until sleep comes tends to obliterate opportunities for pensiveness, hence the “drink cure.” Mostly, we live in the moment, get through one day then the next and the one after, all filled with our little vices, victories and defeats. During all this churning, years later, we wonder where the time went.

I do believe to some degree all of us slip in and out of periods of time when we do watch, listen, see. This is particularly true when we are in pans and feel vulnerable confronted with a crisis that forces our attention on life itself, either ours or that of someone we love. We may take the time…finally… to take stock of who or what is integral to our well-being. We grieve those with whom we have differences who seem to be lost forever as well as the ones we have indeed lost forever. I don’t think we ever stop hoping for a resolution but our stubbornness, righteousness and pride, and theirs, wait eternally it seems for the other side to blink first. It seems sad to even allude to the word “side.” Carrying this dissonance (and others) around disrupts our ability to quiet ourselves enough to engage our senses and to tend to the self care of our emotions in order to achieve peaceful co-existence. Yet, we seem incapable of healthier outcomes. Perhaps, engaging in watching, listening and seeing are states of healing that take place when our minds focus outward rather than inward.

Just yesterday, around 5:00, for no reason, my husband said, “Let’s go for a short ride.” This is his code for just getting in the car and hitting the back roads, no destination, no time frame. This has been his constant gift to me for more than 50 years. It gives respite to my life-long battle depression because whether we are gone an hour or a week, these journeys almost never fail to turn my roiling insides out to…yes…watch, listen and see.

I watched a rail thin ~11 year African American old boy with an oversized Afro stepping slowly, kicking stones in a farm yard and wondered what his stories were. The late afternoon air was pleasantly warm, so with windows down, there was an abiding absence of nearly every noise save an occasional bird song. I witnessed the signs of both the growing affluence in the area by the number of newer McMansions dotting the hilltops with the best views and, likewise, the growing, widespread economic failures of abandoned family farms once the backbone of life in this area. I wanted to enjoy this time so attempted to keep this last observation as just that.

Watch.

Listen.

See.

Maybe we are better off if these acts are interpreted more as ideas, or even ideals and engaged in from afar. Less messy and complicated. Maybe these acts, if practiced, are meant simply to bring balance to those dissonant bits and pieces of our lives…if we can just get ourselves out of our own drama, refocus and, as Ms. Rimmel writes, create our own spaces.

If…