Take a look

I have been very visual lately. The information I take in through my eyes has been designated extra weight by my brain and chemistry. I have bee particularly taken with the sky. The heartbreaking color palette of the evening, the fulminating form and shades of gray of a storm-a-comin', the storybook clarity of that perfect blue on a sunny late-summer day (after the heat has moved on).

Everywhere I look there is something beautiful to see.

But, I've noticed something else. There's an active quality to my seeing which feels different. It's making me hunger for a new camera again. It's making me want to stop and put what I am seeing into more of a perspective...to create something of the moment to share and to show. (And, truth be told, to literally inhabit what it is, to try it on, to enter it, to disappear into it for awhile...)

I took the picture above yesterday morning. I was heading to the shower, but remembered I wanted to make a quick phone call. I perched on the side of my bed, made the call, and when I was done, instead of standing up, I lay back. I looked out the window and this is what I saw.

We have lived here over three years and I have never noticed the intense clumping of the pine cones on this tree that overhangs the backyard. There are various possible explanations for this. But, what I focused on was the gift of seeing what was in front of me. The simple, majestic, and unique beauty of it.

I love seeing something I've never seen before. The jolt that comes with recognizing how special something is for that reason. The newness of the object itself, or the openness of one's mind that lets in a peek from a new perspective.

I invited Cap and the kids to come see. To lie with me on the big bed and turn their heads just so, and to take a look to see what they could see.