Gradually noticing.

I like to think that I'm a very observant person. I've convinced myself that I'm privy to sights and sounds and smells that others are entirely unaware of. Moss. Mud. Random leaf formations. Horned bugs. Blue birds. Cloud caverns. Cotton drifts.

And then I notice something that I've sped past dozens or even hundreds of times before without noticing. A very large, if partially hidden, camellia bush in which any number of children or chickens or cats could play and hide on a nice day. An overgrown patio laid out in a brick herringbone pattern, creeping with purple-feathered flower-weeds. A stretch of field and forest hidden behind a closer field and forest, only visible if you really look for it or if you happen to be allured by a particularly robust and peach-tinted bank of heavy cream clouds, a bank which happens to drift over the far-away, hidden field and forest, so that, as you follow the clouds, your eyes naturally fall onto the distance, jarring you into the realization that you've never seen it before.

Also sometimes I hear all of the birds singing at once, warbling, whistling, performing, and I think, "Have they been doing that all along? Had I blocked it out?"

At first, I was saddened by the thought that, as observant as I am, I still miss so much of the world around me. On second thought, however, I realized what a blessing it is that I haven't noticed everything, that there are things un-noticed, waiting for my moment of awakening to them. Wouldn't it be terrible if I had nothing left to notice?