Watching

Watching and waiting. Sometimes it seems this is how we spend most of our lives: watching for the rain to clear. For spring to arrive. For dawn to lift the darkness and the chill from our limbs.

 

Sometimes there is nothing to be done but watch as the earth turns, slowly, as it always has done. Into and out of darkness and light. Toward and away from colour and warmth.

We may feel at times that it’s all we can do just to watch our own feet, covering ground step by steady step, hoping that something new may lie around the bend.

 

Sometimes there really is something new to see, something we didn’t expect, but which is gifted to us because we were watching carefully.

At other times we may need to change our focus. When the background of our lives seems barren, the signs we hope for may be in the foreground instead. The tiniest things may come to mean much more to us than they ever did before.

 

 

At such times I try to walk even more slowly than usual. I pay attention to the beauty of the path I am on already, rather than trying to foresee forks that may lie ahead, or bridges I may yet have to cross.

I watch for windows into other worlds, into other ways of seeing things. I watch for glimpses of the world turned upside down.

At certain times and in certain places, such visions come to us clearly and vividly. We can see the whole picture in perspective, what is and what may yet be.

At other times, we may need to remind ourselves that the shadows of the present need not bar the way to a very different kind of future.

Spring may come again without our needing to lift a finger. Light and warmth may return of their own accord, whether we're paying attention or not.

 

That is why I watch so carefully. I just don’t want to miss anything.