I feel a bit like quoting August Rush right now. The magic is all around us, all we have to do is notice it.
I’ve seen a lot of things about noticing on social media lately. I think that one of the most beautiful parts of noticing is that it’s free. It costs you nothing to notice the leaves changing color or that the flower you passed on your walk a few days ago has bloomed. It costs you nothing to see the little curl at the temple of your daughter or the way that your son pulls his favorite stuffy to his chest. These are everyday moments and the only cost is to notice them.
I don’t want to discount personal tragedies, on large and small scales. I also want to be mindful of how hard it is to notice those moments when you are deep in depression. I have been in those places myself. Noticing has been much harder for me in those places, but it has also been one of the things that pulled me through them. There was a particular year or so of my life where I was sad nearly all the time. I’d graduated college, but during my senior year, my boyfriend had broken up with me. I didn’t have any close friends that year. It took nearly a year and a half to come out of that place but one thing that got me through was my daily walk to and from work. At the time I’d worked at a school that was near my home, close enough to walk. I remember walking in the snow and the rain and the sunshine. I remember the way that the raindrops clung to the tips of the branches to look like little lights. I remember the way that the snow laid heavy on the branches with pine needles poking through them. I remember the petal-strewn path of the sidewalk in the spring. Sometimes I think that noticing is what kept depression from choking all the hope out of me.
Noticing is a particularly potent small magic to me because it is one that you can use to fill your cup. So much of my time and probably yours is spent making magic for others. This is something that can fill you and it’s also a gift that you can give to those around you.
I feel like noticing beautiful things has been one of my gifts in life, but I think it’s also something that you can cultivate. It’s something that I have tried to add more of in my life, especially during some of those harder times.
I’ve noticed, as I’ve pointed out the little beautiful things to my children, that they are learning to notice them on their own. We went hiking a few weeks ago and my daughter looked up at the trees and told me that the leaves in the wind looked like butterflies. It was so beautiful to me because it was something I hadn’t noticed. But her noticing it made magic for me.
So, how exactly do you start cultivating something like this. For me, it’s a bit like writing poetry. It helps to be fully present in the moment, but it can also happen as you look back over your day. Try listing out things that you sense around you. Any and all of your senses. The way something smells. The way that something looks in a particular light (my daughter also told me the other day that the light in her room near sunset was beautiful because it was all golden and it pulled me right back to a moment looking at her changing table in the same kind of light before she was born). The way something tastes. The way it feels on your skin. Just start taking moments to stop and just be in the moment. Even right now, feeling the carpet beneath me and listening to the clack of the keyboard while my husband does laundry is beautiful. Just noticing that being here in this moment is nice.
One of the things I also like to do is to take pictures of the little moments that are possible to capture. I feel like I’m constantly pulling out my phone to take a picture of little things like that. It’s a way for me to cherish the moment and also to come back to it. Photographs are like little time machines for me.
Journaling, writing poetry, or even just sending a text to myself or my husband about a sweet moment with the children is another way that I like to gather these little glimmers. It helps me remember them and it is the only way that I know to take myself back to some of those places.
I don’t know that it’s possible to be fully present all the time. There are moments that don’t feel beautiful at all to me, even if I focus on being present. Moments when someone has peed on the carpet or I am ill or something is extremely painful. Not every moment has to be beautiful for noticing to add magic to your life. I would agree though, that the more you focus on something the more you see it. The way when you learn a new word, suddenly you find it in movies you’ve watched a hundred times or people around you use it. Looking for those little glimmers and moments in life does seem to make more of them appear.
Occasionally I’ll notice that I am feeling less of those moments. That I am having a hard time finding them. Usually when I’m going through my journals or when I’m having a moment to be quiet with myself when I haven’t for a long time. Sometimes it feels like those glimmers won’t come back somehow. When that happens I try to take time to add more of what I need into my life. More of what I know feeds my soul. Whether that is walks by myself, more journaling, or more time to write. Or, sometimes that looks like the third kind of small magic that I plan on writing about in the coming weeks. Romanticizing your life.
I look forward to sharing that post with you all soon! I hope that you notice a little more magic this week.