Until one sees its Beauty

“To look at a thing is quite different from seeing a thing, and one does not see anything until one sees its beauty.” – Miss Mabel Chiltern, An Ideal Husband

Until one sees its Beauty

The evening sun, the “golden hour,” was just beginning to slip behind the Stansbury Mountains, on its way to seemingly take a dip into the Great Salt Lake.  This exceptional light made it so the green of the grass was remarkably vivid and bright.  And, it was a brilliant contrast against the tall, dry, yellowed grass just over the fence.  That was the look of the pastoral scene right in front of me and it surrounded the reddish colored gate standing as a doorway to a stockade.

Once I passed through this portal, I saw anxious black, furry faces turning toward me and then toward an adjacent manger in anticipation of dinner.  I slipped through one, other gate, slid the barn door open, gathered hay, walked back to the manger, and threw the hay in.  At that moment, moist, broad, back noses reached toward the food and were soon covered in flakes of green, as was my shirt.

I turned away, brushed the green flakes from my shirt, with my gloved hand, and ambled through the gate, back into the corral.  My eyes were fixing on the reddish gate as I walked, the fading sun to my right.  That’s when movement in the tall, dry, yellow grass across the fence beckoned my eyes.

“I wonder what that is?”  I whispered to myself as I walked right up to the fence.

My own dinner was calling me, so I hesitated to linger.  It moved again.  I stood still and focused.  The light was waning.  It was hard to see.

“It looks like two sticks moving above the lightly waving grass.”  I thought.

But, its rhythm was in contrast to the grass’ dance.  I looked harder, more carefully.  Doing so exposed a small delicate head, a petite narrow snout and two antlers.  It was a young, buck mule deer.  Its unexpected beauty captured my presence.  I gazed to absorb it.  To see rather than to just look.

That evening, for the first time, the tall, dry, yellowed grass just over the fence came alive.  Six more heads, sensing my concentration, rose almost in harmony above the grass.  They wanted to see me as well.  They were a brilliant contrast of life against the above-ground-dead grassland.

“This truly is the golden hour!”  I said, right out loud, to the small herd of deer in front of me.

I turned reluctantly to my right, toward the reddish colored gate, so I could leave the stockade and walk through the pastoral scene toward my home.

“To look at a thing is quite different from seeing a thing, and one does not see anything until one sees its beauty.”

Full-Blown Grins

Weight and balance calculations

Full-Blown Grins

There was a shrill, screeching sound as a forklift worked to position the pallet of landscaping material on the truck.  The driver was trying to stop another sounding alarm.  It was the truck’s squawking over-weight alarm.  All this caused another attendant to pull her calculator out and rush her fingers across the screen, so she could calculate weight & load numbers in the midst of this bothersome noise.

In moments, she reported that the numbers worked and that weight tolerance & safety were not going to be a concern.  In response, the forklift driver nodded his head in understanding.  Then, he jumped down from his machine and lowered the right-side truck-bed-side-boards so he could try a different approach.

He had been working from the rear of the truck and now recognized that he couldn’t solve this problem from that position.  His actions announced a subtlety he recognized through personal experience.  Weight was only one of two issues we were dealing with on this load.  Balance, though hidden from my inexperienced eye, could make the load manageable and secure.

The screeching happened anew as he lifted the load and then pushed it toward the front end of the truck’s bed.  When it arrived in his intended position he began to let the truck assume the entire weight of the pallet while holding his breath.  The screech from dragging the pallet ended and the weight-alarm’s squawking remained a memory.  The three of us gave each other hopeful glances and then our mouths moved into a full-blown grin at the welcome silence.

I strapped the load in, climbed into the truck’s cab, started the engine and began driving to the drop point.  Our work of calculating load capacity and actuating balance allowed my drive to be uneventful.  That was the good news. 

The bad news was that the forklift didn’t make the drive with me!  Upon my arrival I had a new weight and balance issue.  I parked the truck, climbed into its bed and began to unload the two tons of material, one heavy bag at a time.

“Weight and balance problems seem to persist everywhere I go!” I muttered to myself as I worked.

After two days of struggled labor, I stepped back to survey the results of conquering weight and balance issues.  The completed landscaping project had softened, balanced and beautified my yard.  My ears remembered the shrill, screeching sound made as a forklift driver worked to position this landscaping material on a truck just a couple of days earlier.  And, my heart remembers the lessons I learned about weight and balance.

Perhaps you and I could remove lots of bothersome noise from our lives by completing some of our own weight and balance calculations?  Who knows, maybe doing so would allow us to enjoy our life’s journey with a few more full-blown grins positioned on our faces.

Becoming Blind

The sight of a two-year-old.

Becoming Blind

“What’s that?”

The words were an excited explosion coming from the mouth of, Landon Johnson, a two-year-old little boy on an evening walk.

The donkey down the street was braying loudly, as he often does.  It’s a sound I’m used to.  I know it’s there.  I just don’t pay attention to it any more.  Apparently, there are many things I don’t really pay attention to any more.

“The sky!”

“Sheep. Baa!”

“A bird!”

“A Dog!”

“Cows!”

“Rocks!”

Our walk was very exciting, and very slow.  Because, Landon sees everything with joy, anticipation, and excitement.  I had gone out to boost my heart rate by walking fast.  As soon as we left the house I could see that exercise, with a heightened heart rate, wasn’t going to be a result of our walk. Yet, my heart rate was accelerated just by having Landon point out all the things I have become blind to.

As we progressed up the road I began to ask myself, “How can I rediscover joy from everything around me?”  Is there something to be done to remove this kind of cataract?

Just a two or three days earlier, walking up this very road, I talked with a friend about how her sight had been failing.  Two weeks earlier her doctor had removed a cataract from one of her eyes.  This coming week she is going in to have another cataract removed from her other eye.  As a result, her sight will be greatly improved as the clouded, natural lens of her eye is removed and replaced with an interocular, artificial lens by her surgeon.

Such cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes.  They are most commonly due to aging.  And, while I don’t currently have physical cataracts on my eyes.  Landon has shown me that I have developed, through age or other factors, a different type of cloudy lens leading to decreased vision.

My guess is that I’m not alone.  There are likely millions of us that suffer from this same form of vision loss.  Luckily, surgery will not be needed, but our quality of life can be improved by following simple sensory loss prevention protocols.

Wear sunglasses when going out each day for sensory improvement sessions.  Walk, play outdoor games or ride a bicycle.  Increase your heart rate, through exercise, and by focusing on exercising your senses.  Take note of the natural world’s beauty all around you.  Listen to the sounds, see the people and animals, feel wonder at the beauty of it all. 

If all this fails, take a two-year-old, like Landon, with you to act as your guide.  Listen as he says, “What’s that?” And then, let the excited explosion coming from his mouth heal your blindness.