Something has stirred me out of a long, antsy sleep. It’s been almost a year since I’ve smoothed open the cold pages of a new journal. It’s been almost a year since I signed and dated the first page. I’m a fresh student, ready to pay attention.
This morning, while I lay on my stomach in the grass, I saw the morning light throb like a sharp white flare out of the corner of my eye. It was coming from the furred Mullan plant, from a singular leaf. The morning dew on the leaf fur was tilted at the precise angle to magnify the sun.
I remember finding out about this trick at grandma and grandpa’s house. The neighbor girl and I crouched over the black concrete, pointing the magnifying glass spotlight on the plump ants that lived in the deep cracks between the sidewalk and driveway. But when we decided to give up our Godly power of wielding the sun, we turned back to mashing the wild blackberries to make soup for the ants as an apology.
I remember how to look when I have nowhere to be. On my stomach, in the grass, I saw the serrated edge of the clover leaves that I would have imagined being perfectly smooth. When you look without assumption, without a timer or a need, everything unfolds for us in patterned, precise detail.
The delicate color of the eye unfolds if you look closer. We know this the instant we begin to like someone. What appeared black becomes brown, becomes warm brown, becomes a secret amber ring, becomes a window, becomes an entire galaxy.
So the same pattern unfolds when we meet someone new. There is always a gap, a barrier, between what we mean and what we say. Who we are, and what we say we are. So, like dancing around a circle together, never quite able to cross the other side and reach each other completely, we toss out our best guesses into the center. Our quiet wisdom, fears, what we dream of, joy. We dance around and stay curious, as the strangers beside us reveal themselves and become familiar. We’re all strange and detailed, and so much the same.
When we were those kids, we crouched to the ground, red elbows and scuffed knees, burning the ants and feeding them warm blackberry soup. When I smooth open a fresh page in a notebook, I am the kid, watching for the strange creatures and people and patterns to unfold.
