Powers of Observation

I've been driving the rental car for nearly a week now & just realized as of last night that it has a sunroof.

This makes me feel a little silly & brings back all kinds of thoughts/stories/memories of how non-observant I am. Sometimes I kick myself around for this, but I'm trying to be more gentle with me & so I'm not as concerned. I have to live with the fact that I don't observe a lot of things that I probably should notice.

Being aware of things is funny. My friend Ken has talked to me about how they've done studies about how your ear becomes attuned to certain sounds, phrases, etc. Your name for instance. You can be in a crowded room, tons of noise, but if someone says your name, even across the room, your ears still pick it up & your head jerks to see who is calling you/talking about you. I find that happens to me with other stuff. I can hear 'church', 'Jesus' or other christian-y terms halfway across the room even when I'm having a hard time hearing someone next to me. It's crazy, but it's all about what matters to you at the time, what your heart is focussed on. SInce my dad's time in the hospital, my head's added words like 'heart disease' and 'angiogram' to it's list of trigger phrases.....

I think your eyes are prone to this, too..... I'm now noticing Mustangs wherever I go, mostly 'cause the last rental car was a Mustang & I really liked driving it. So now I'm realizing that Ft.Wayne has an incredible number of Mustangs driving around, or it's just that I'm now 'attuned' to see Mustangs when they drive by. (Walking through the mall today I was thinking about how I'm attuned to notice pretty girls, or, well, women in general. It's an odd, semi-uncontrollable thing. I noticed it today while thinking about how beautiful one of my other gal friends is & a pretty girl walked by & I noticed this girl in a completely distracted state. I was thinking about another woman, not this girl in front of me & the girl in front of me really didn't register much else in my mind other than that she looked pretty, but that was about it. I was trying to think about how I'd explain this idea of noticing without noticing to a woman & the only thing I could come up with was seeing signs for a 'shoe sale' (& maybe this will get shoes thrown at me). Not all women would be affected by this (I know some that it wouldn't phase at all), but I know others that, even if they didn't want to buy anything, they'd still notice the signs even if they walked past & they never did anything about the thoughts.... but I digress).....

... somewhere amongst the pretty girls & mustangs, I went to the local chocolatier to indulge in one of their decadent deserts. It was this small chocolate cup. 2 inches in diameter and an inch deep, filled with caramel sauce, topped with whipped cream & 4-5 almonds. Around the cup were spaced slices of granny smith apples & almonds for dipping into the caramel... It was wonderful.... & the whole thing helped me become aware of the moment.

I started to think about how you couldn't come into a place like that & think about being healthy, or dieting or whatever. All of these thoughts would kill the experience, kill the moment. The only reason to go for desert in a place like that, with such decadent treats, was to spoil yourself, to indulge in the celebration of the moment. I thought about how that this was a moment of thankfulness, a place of worship, where I was thankful that I had tastebuds that responded to sweetness & tartness. Thanksful that there is such a thing as sugar & chocolate & caramel. I realized that these fresh, crisp, tart apples become a thing of wonder because of how perfectly they are made to offset the overwhelming sweetness of the caramel. Who discovered this richness? Who was the first to have the idea to turn cocao into chocolate, sugar to caramel, to dip apples into this sweetness? In the moment, each bite is savoured, making the moment last. I thought with gratitude of how good it is that I have a pancreas that still works (so far); that can produce enough insulin that my body doesn't go into shock after that much sugar.

I thought about the wonders of chocolate & if everyone in the world enjoyed choclate? I thought about the tension of how 'rich' I felt to be in a country where I could enjoy this sweetness & have enough money to afford these luxuries. I thought, too, about those who don't have such luxuries. Would they want them if they can get them? Do the children in Africa like chocolate? If they could have anything, is chocolate the first thing they'd pick? What about my friend Angie in Africa? Does she still have chocolate? If not, does she miss it?

And somewhere in the middle of this, I realized a 'presence' in the moment; realized that I was open to noticing, to observing, exactly what was going on inside me; the ebb & flo of thoughts, the river of consciousness, the tension between having & not having, between celebrating with thankfulness all that you have, while remembering those that do not have. And again, this 'tension', this being pulled between two seemingly opposite things, seemed right & good & made me feel very much 'alive'.....

I've lived a very 'me'-centric day today. I've been by myself & have done the things that I find restful. Shopping, eating, reading, thinking, sleeping.... Too often my life becomes a blur of activity & I forget to be aware of the moment, aware of me & how I'm feeling in the moments. When I'm out with someone I really care about, I am very much aware (maybe sometimes too much so) of how they are doing/feeling/reacting to the moment & I try to respond/adjust/contort, to try to ensure that they're enjoying the moment (which I've gotta stop doing & just let them experience the moment).... & for as screwed up as that sometimes is, there is, at the heart, a gentleness with that.... that I cherish the person & am just 'aware' of them.... it's nice to take a day to sort of 'cherish' me & be aware of who I am & not force myself to 'be' something other than me in the moments. It just feels good to be able to be 'aware' of the moment & to savour what is there - to have ears, eyes & heart open to experience the richness of the experience - of richness or lack, plenty or want - to drive around with the sunroof open, sunlight filtered & reflected through grey cloud lightening the sky above. wind & road noise teasing it's way into the car, reminding you to breathe, to slow down, to enjoy the awareness of the moment.....