In a bio that I wrote for myself on a little sticker that I intended to put on the back of photographs that I wanted to sell but failed to sell, I quoted William Blake, ‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower, hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour.’
So I look at things. Really look. Close up look. Long time look. I see the perfection of a water droplet caught in the flower of an upside down fuschia flower, the rough texture of the surface of each watchamacallit, that smaller droplets cling, and the interplay of the colors and light and shadow. That kind of stuff.
Our neighbors grow milkweed. It attracts the caterpillars who turn into Monarch butterflies. Only minutes before the butterfly takes leave of his chrysalis he looks like this:
Just a wet leaf. Colors, reflections, a and is the shadow on the right a figure reaching up, smiling as if it’s smelling something good?
Closing in on an orchid.
The beautiful symmetry of a columbine.
And the skeleton of a leaf…
Ladybugs making more ladybugs
Not just objects. Looking closely at things is a part of a larger formula. We also have to look closely at people. And that means paying attention, really listening. Hemingway had this to say,
“When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling.
It’s a rare and profound gift to be fully present with someone, and yet, it’s something so few of us truly offer. Most people only half-listen, their minds already formulating their next words, distracted by their own thoughts, or zoning out entirely.”