The Way I Look at Things
September 3, 2023
That first morning after the cold front blessedly broke the heat wave, walking outside was like walking into a cloud. Moisture rising from the warm Earth into the cool air formed a low-hanging cloud blocking the sun for the first time in a week. Breathing it in felt like salve on a wound. As I walked from the parking lot towards the lake I saw the biggest swarm of dragonflies I've ever seen.
The dragonflies rose high into the air, tracing arcs of light against the cloudy sky. Through the camera I could see the even bigger swirl of tiny bugs they were happily devouring. I let myself swirl around like a child in a water fountain and then used my phone to video this big ball of life. Watching the dragonflies I felt them dancing and sensed the musicality of it all.
I’m amazed at all the ways nature can surprise me and take my breath away after more than ten years of walking in the same place every day. Of course, the “same place” is never really the same place. Like all things, it changes every day. I notice the changes, some more challenging than others. Last year trees were dying from the drought and this year they are dying from disease brought on by too many winters without a ground freeze. Last year the vegetation was sparse and this year it’s overflowing. Yet even on the dullest of days, the days that look gray or sparse or uninteresting at first glance, there will be something.
It might be the peculiar site of corn fully flourishing at the end of August. My brain registers fresh corn as a July treat and can’t quite reconcile why it’s flourishing now. This cornfield in the park is new, a program where they lease the land out to be farmed. When they cut down the trees and razed everything to the ground it felt devastating. This area was always full of indigo buntings - would they disappear? Now I’ve discovered that indigo buntings love fields of corn. Finding them hiding among the corn stalks is like finding a needle in a haystack but much more fun!
It might be the site of an unfamiliar bird in a very familiar tree. My brain registered “white head, dark eye” but the best I could do at the moment was wonder if it was a leusistic red-shouldered hawk. That didn’t seem right so just in case I took a lot of photos. Looking at the photos, I discovered this gorgeous bird was a first-year Mississippi kite! This was the first time I’d seen a juvenile and by far my closest encounter with a kite.
The unusual grabs my attention. It might be a bird I haven’t seen or it might just be the unique way the sun is coming through the trees in a given moment. The sun moves along the horizon all year long, moving north from January through June and then south the rest of the year. The position of the sunrise is never the same from one day to the next, the branches and leaves on the trees change and so the sunburst seen today might never come again in exactly this same way.
Grackles are common here but the flocks get really large in the fall before they migrate. Sitting in the middle of a flock of birds while they stream around you is a magical feeling. It’s a multi-sensory experience with the sound of so many wings, the visual sense of everything in motion, and the kinesthetic feeling of so many bodies moving as one. I wish every child could experience a large flock of birds at least once in a setting where they feel safe (and definitely not in an Alfred Hitchcock movie - “The Birds” scarred me for years!).
When the flock started to come towards me I sat down on the ground and soon the swirl was moving around me. Birds on the ground were foraging and moving closer until a few actually came inside my shadow. The grackles are molting and looking pretty scruffy right now and yet they are still full of magic. From a distance they appear unremarkably brown and black. Yet when the light catches their feathers a whole collage of colors appear!
What makes me look at a dragonfly swirl and respond by dancing? What makes me sit on the ground and take 600+ photos of grackles, delighting in the interplay of light on their feathers, or sit for two hours watching young turkey vultures joust with each other? What makes me notice that sparkle of the rising sun in a dew drop under the guard rail or see the slight movement in the trees that tells me something’s hiding there?
It hadn’t occurred to me until recently that the “feature” of my brain that easily hyper-fixates on a problem to the detriment of sleep, makes it hard for me to look past small mistakes and dangers, and often JUST CAN’T LET IT GO is the same feature that helps me notice the small differences around me each day. It’s a feature that helps me see the slightest difference in color or flight pattern or differentiate a sound that’s similar but not the same. It’s a problem-solving feature that makes me good at my day job as a systems analyst but can also make me overly critical.
For most of my life, I’ve been afraid of being seen as naive, gullible, judgmental, or just plain weird. My way of thinking can feel very childlike and simple. The nit-picking can be critical and judgmental, especially when I fail to remember that not everyone perceives the world the way I do. Sometimes solutions come to me out of thin air and I get very anxious about not being able to explain how I came up with a solution. This is part of why I can’t let it go - it’s like I’m trying to watch how my brain goes from A to B so I’ll be able to explain it later.
Perhaps this way of seeing and thinking is a feature rather than a bug. Pop culture isn’t altogether kind in referencing brains that seem to work differently than the accepted “norm”. I can relate to characters like Sheldon Cooper in “The Big Bang Theory”, even if my particular brain works in a different unique way.
If only there were dragonflies to distract me at 2 AM when I’m trying to solve the latest “crisis” at work or freaking out about an upcoming event. Perhaps accepting the way my brain works - and really leaning into gratitude for the benefits it provides - will help me find new ways of relating to myself. Perhaps someday I will find a way to let things go more easily and accept what I won’t be able to explain. The universe is full of mystery so why shouldn’t I be as well?
In the meantime, one of the best things I can do is to let my brain do what it does in nature as often as possible. Out on a walk by myself, my brain is free to notice every little thing without making anyone - even me! - crazy. I can think in songs, see the patterns, and notice the nuances without having to explain myself, feel self-conscious, or risk being teased.
Every drop of beauty I notice is one more reason to be grateful.
One of my favs, this one! Thank you for paying attention to and sharing the details, the beauty and grandeur most of us simply pass by. It is a Superpower you have and I count myself blessed to be on the receiving end of that gift.
I am so glad your brain has this feature, and that your heart has the generosity to share your perspectives with the rest of us.