Eyes to See

I started a new job 2 months ago. I'll spare the details for now except to say that I now work steady hours at a steady location for a steady 5 days a week. After 3 years with no routine, it was a welcome change, but one I'm still getting used to. 

One of the biggest things I've noticed is how quickly you can get sucked into the hum drum, this is my life, I do it everyday, it's not that exciting mentality. You start getting comfortable, or complacent, and forget to notice what's around you. It's easier to notice the remarkable, or not so remarkable, when you are out of a routine, out of your element, and in a new city all together. (Some of the supreme joys of traveling - hyper alertness and limitless serendipity.) But I was now in a routine, in my element, and in the same city. 

The job change also brought with it a temporary loss of identity as I tried to steer my life onto a new path with a new position. And, I turned one year older, doh. 

It was on my birthday, in fact, with these thoughts still troubling me, that I learned life may not be so much about where you go or what you do as in what you see. 

For my birthday, I met up for lunch with my brother (new perk) at Bombay Pizza Co (definite perk) located on Main and Walker. My brother was running a little behind, so I sat on the patio enjoying the nice day and waited. It was then I noticed a man with a camera. A nice one. He was taking photos. I turned my head to face the direction of his lens to see what he was trying to capture. And I saw it.

The noon sun reflecting off the glass skyscrapers causing the spring flowers to glow just as the metro rail drove by. It was a perfect shot.

View from Bombay Pizza Co., Main & Walker

(PS it was nothing like the shot above. It was taken at the same place but different time, different camera, and most importantly different photographer!)

And that's when it hit me. What else had I been missing in my new hum drum life? What else had I failed to see simply because I didn't have the eyes to see it?! If the camera had not directed me to the view, would I have even noticed? And if I had noticed, would I have deemed it worthy of a photo?

So with my new eyes, I'm trying to find the joy in the hum drum. In the 30 minute bus ride, in the 6 block walk, during my 1 hour lunch, and in my return trip home.

So far, this is what I've seen:

• A sidewalk is just a sidewalk until you decide to somersault! (This was not me. I was the one awkwardly walking past trying to pretend this was completely normal behavior. But we both knew it wasn't. And we both laughed.)
• A morning bus ride is just a bus ride until a man keeps looking your way and smiling and you start racking your brain on if you know him, but conclude you assuredly do not and then the evening bus ride is just a bus ride until this same man who you've now determined is creepy sits next to you! (Ear buds - fast!)
• A walk to lunch is just a walk until you get stopped by a microphone and camera for some vox pop (you can Google that).
• A lunch is just a lunch until you're working on your tan at Discovery Green watching people learn how to paddle board.
• And a lunch at Discovery Green soon becomes just another lunch until you meet a date there and he buys it for you - even after you insulted his college football team but before you realized he actually played on that team. (Doh - palm to the face.)
• A walk to the bus stop is just a walk until you get some American piropos - What up Beauty?!
• And finally, a Friday is thankfully a Friday (always), until you realize that Power Failure you were called about last night was real and you, in fact, do not have to go to work despite the normal weather and perfectly good day. 

Discovery Green: Day 1

In your hum drum, routine of a day - what do you see?

After all:

"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

I couldn't have said it better.