Windows

On Being Amazed by the Ordinary

  

There are so many ways of seeing. And one of the things I love best about being on the road is how it invites me to see the world in new ways. Here is it is––the view from my temporary bedroom window in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a place I never expected to visit. A view the world pared down to the essentials: an open field with horses, pointed conifers, big white clouds and much bigger mountains, capped in snow. Which is pretty much a view you have access to from all over town. Just add some sloped-roof houses, curved roads and red barns. Sometimes cattle grazing. Or in the right time of year, elk.  

I loved the way the fences ran along the edges of property lines, stacked branches in a pyramid running along the long green acres. There was almost a rhythm to the lines of fence framing the scene beyond. It occurred to me the branches made a structure that could have been for music, the way a staff offers a home to notes to be played in a written score. The joins of the fence became bars that marked a phrase. And everywhere we looked, so much music!

We get so accustomed to the beauty all around us, we sometimes need to be startled by the beauty of somewhere else. And I say that as someone who makes her way in the world by writing about what she thinks and notices. But I, too, forget. Become accustomed, immune.

And so it felt lucky to be suddenly in Wyoming, teaching a class on writing and creativity with my husband, Armando, who improvised on guitar for us––and with our dog, Pumpkin, who mostly curled up in my lap, and on her off time, aspired to go join the horses grazing in the field.  

How do we live our lives amazed by the ordinary? I don’t know. Except that it helps to put a frame around it, to paint a painting or write a poem or tell a story. To write a song. It helps to slow it down. Or slow ourselves down before we turn away from everyday beauty on our way back to our worries, our fears, our concerns about the ever-more-complicated future.

One thing spending time with our new friends at Jackson Writers reminded me of was how much we accomplish when we just spend time together immersed in art. Which is to say, immersed in new ways of seeing. And in sharing those new ways of seeing with each other. Our crew ranged in age from twenty-four to ninety and I felt so fed by every glimpse into one another’s worlds–––just like looking through that window onto the open field. What struck me was the simplicity of our materials: pencil, pen, paper, handmade journals, and some glue sticks. : ) (What more do you need?) Oh––-time. I forgot about time. That when we can take even a little time to spend in nature, with a pencil and paper, and each other, we can find our way back to the world. Right where we want to be.