I grew up in Manchester, Missouri, a suburb of St Louis County, and lived there most of my life. Later as a young adult, I lived for quite sometime in a small town outside St Charles, Missouri near Amish country and just down the street from a State Park with the most jaw dropping views in every season.
Even so, I took the view of bluffs and rolling hills and rivers as pictured above and below for granted because I saw them so frequently.
Then, at age 33, I moved to Oklahoma and the wide open plains and flatlands with their beautiful sunsets and red dirt. I was in awe, at first, of the marvel of flat land that continued on for miles, as far as the eye could see, and the contrast between the red earth and deep green landscape.
It wasn't until I returned back to Missouri on a visit to see my parents that I realized how achingly beautiful the tall bluffs were that rose up to frame winding blacktopped highways and back roads. I was able to re-see them with fresh eyes.
Reading in the "Anam Cara" by John O' Donohue again this morning, I came upon a quote by Hegel,
"Generally, the familiar, precisely because it is familiar, is not known."
O' Donohue elaborates,
"We reduce the wildness and mystery of person and landscape to the external familiar image. Familiarity is one of the most subtle and pervasive forms of human alienation."
Columbian writer PA Mendoza speaks of his 30 year marriage by saying,
"I know her so well now, that I have not the slightest idea who she really is."
In reading these aloud to my husband, John, this morning he recounted how even a life of constant novelty can become familiar as he experienced traveling around the United States seeing the world by helicopter during his 8 years as an aerial photographer. He slept in a different hotel most nights and woke up to a plethora of landscapes. He said,
"Once you label something in your mind, it can lose novelty and interest."
What if we could look with fresh eyes at everything? What if we read familiar books and prose with new eyes? What if we saw the ones we love as if we were glimpsing them for the first time? What if we could marvel at the prismatic soap bubble or round, plump, veined heirloom tomato and its deep red juice?
When we take another as part of ourself, or an environment, or even our own thoughts, when we assign that label or that meaning making that our prefrontal cortex is so good at, our attention ceases its curiosity.
Children are so curious. The world is fresh and new, and every introduction is infused with the questions of 'why' and 'how' and 'can I do it again?'. But somewhere along the way, life becomes familiar and we stop asking questions. We stop paying attention.
This morning, as I sit on my back porch, my fluffy Norwegian Forest Cat lapped water out of a rusted birdbath instead of her clean stainless steel bowl of filtered water and I wondered, "why?" Could it be that the water just tastes sweeter in someone else's untasted bath?
How can we stay content and ever wondering about our familiar? Can we see the mystery in all the questions that we stopped asking, assuming we knew their answers?
Can we keep rushing to the window each morning to experience the first light of dawn even in its steady, familiar rising?
Warmly,
Jennifer Ferrante, CHt.
Ferrante Family Wellness
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