Seeing

I don't know when I became so tuned to the changing of seasons.  Perhaps it began when I started to notice how much sunlight affected me, when I realized my need for it, when I craved it in Minnesota's long winters.  Or perhaps it's been the influence of those around me--people who began pointing things out to me, just as Stargirl did to Leo in Spinelli's book of the same name.  Leo tells the reader:

She saw things.  I had not known there was so much to see.
She was forever tugging my arm and saying, "Look!
I would look around, seeing nothing.  "Where?"
She would point.  "There."
In the beginning I still could not see.  She might be pointing to a doorway, or a perosn, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing." I walked in a gray world of nothing.

 I want to see.

I have very strong memories of walks home from school.  It was always the same route, but I would see things.  I especially remember being transfixed by the assured lines of naked tree branches reflected in puddles along the battered road.  I would try to fix the image in one part of my mind as I rummaged through the other parts for words that fit it.  Once home, I tried to commit this observations to paper.  That's how I began writing.

I don't write so much anymore, but perhaps it's because I see more, and I selfishly am content in the seeing, the noticing, the enjoying, and I let it fill my whole mind and let the words rest.

That's what this spring has been: seeing.  The winter was gentle with us in the Czech Republic, and I reciprocated her kindness by noticing her graceful exit and welcoming the successor.  I've been watching her up and down Moravia with weekend trips to castles, chateaux, trails, and villages.  I've been seeing and smiling, but perhaps it's time for me to be generous again with you, in order that you might also see.  Perhaps it's time for me to tug your arm, and say "Look!"