Revealed

“A true voyage of discovery is not seeking out new lands, but having new eyes”. Marcel Proust

Seeing things in a new way, or with new perspective (age? experience? time?) can be life giving. It can also be very startling as you might realize nothing has changed - but you- and this is how it has really been all along. This new world is really the old world, or is it, "behold the old has been made new?"

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I finished reading One Thousand Gifts while sitting in the Mid-Manhattan public library the day that it was due! It was such a poetically written book. I've never quite read anything like it, but I LOVE IT! So much so that I will be purchasing it soon so that I can read it with my highlighter in hand next go-round. I was constantly blurting out, at home-not in public, "Oh, listen to this," "Oh, you've got to hear this!" At least Chris appeases me and lets me read lovely passages to him from my books. Discussion usually follows. I have a wonderful man!

We love books. I keep saying if and when we move again (across the globe- around the world- to middle America) I don't care if we get rid of the furniture and couches and knick-knacks that have seemed to lose meaning over time- BUT I can not part with my books and journals.

We spent our 50 degree Saturday wandering the Upper East side with so many others. We stopped by the art supply store so I could get new writing pens. It's so enticing to buy stamps and pretty papers and stationary and brightly colored post-its. But I resisted. We spent a couple hours in the massive Barnes and Noble on 86th Street where we looked at books on farming and gardening and vegetarian cooking. Okay, well I looked at cookbooks. Besides jotting down a couple of titles to check out from the library, a recipe to google later, and some quote about the word "conventional" (vs. organic) I found very little at Barnes and Noble.

I've grown accustom to my neighborhood coffee place for reading and journaling and wasn't liking B&N whatsoever. Which is odd. Maybe it was just that particular day, but the noise and the people and the consumerism of the whole place was driving me insane. Quaint, mellow, authentic- it was not. I couldn't be reflective and I was not motivated, but only drained in a way that I can only explain as devastating.

I've been trying to get away from the florescent lights and the boredom that comes from routine and the way that eyes are glazed over when they say, "Did you find everything alright today?" and they never wait for a response but only focus somewhere that's definitely not this present moment, because this present moment would require thought. Interaction. Engaging.

And thinking about this present moment: sound and sirens and fussy children- too much stimuli- and always being late and pushed and shoved and hearing "f*ck you" hollered on the street outside your window at 5:30AM in the morning while you lay in bed contemplating getting up and walking the four block to the gym in the 22 degree weather- thinking about all of this would be hard. Maybe devastating.

Maybe thinking about things means change for many of us. Or conversations. Or tests. Or trying- again. Or asking for help. So, not thinking keeps us happily content behind our glazed eyes and focus in the distance.

Because in the distance--- that is where one day we will be okay. In the future real life will start and this will be over. Or perhaps it's in a new perception. A new reality. "Having new eyes."