Friday, March 1, 2013

Lesson 6 - Take another look



On Saturday, my granddaughter Oreo got her new glasses. The rest of us were humbled to mistiness. Vision problems in children often go undiagnosed. But Oreo's mother has been on the lookout for this one-since she wore glasses as a child, too.

All weekend Oreo entertained us, taking her glasses on and off and squealing in delight at the way things "really" looked. This made the rest of us uncomfortably conscious of the things we see, but don't "really" notice. Like the furniture in your house. If a piece were missing in the morning, when would you notice?

I'm that way about Biker Mike's mustache. Most of our marriage he has worn one. But a couple times each year, he shaves it off. It can take me a week to notice. I'm not kidding. I'm not at all proud of it. I often miss things staring me in the face. I can manage 85 things at once. But I cannot accurately describe the face of the person sitting next to me. I am very familiar with my husband's appearance. His height, his stature. His hair color. The baritone of his voice. I have all but memorized the contents of his closet, so I can almost predict what he will wear on any given day. Pick a topic and I can tell you how he feels about it. But the mustache; that's trickier.

When we look at something so many times, we begin to see it only for its relationship to us. Not for what it really is. I hope that next week I can notice more of the things around me, the way Oreo does. Like whether or not Biker Mike is sporting a mustache when he uses his "I told you so" smile.



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