{"id":27769,"date":"2024-12-27T09:33:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T14:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=27769"},"modified":"2024-12-27T09:33:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T14:33:18","slug":"not-just-what-to-look-at-what-even-to-see-in-the-first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/not-just-what-to-look-at-what-even-to-see-in-the-first-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Just What to Look At: What Even to *See* in the First Place"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “Pick One,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page<\/a> at <\/em>RAMH.)]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From whiskey river’s commonplace <\/a><\/em>book<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

After an old Hasidic master died, his followers sat around, talking about his life. One person wondered aloud, “What was the most important thing in the world for the master?” They all thought about it. Another responded, after a time, “Whatever he happened to be doing at the time.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Susan Murphy [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Starfish<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish<\/em>. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart<\/em> or brave<\/em>,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Eleanor Lerman [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From elsewhere:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

There\u2019s something you learned from experience that took so long you didn\u2019t even realize you learned it: seeing. The development of your visual system takes a long time. Your eyes opened in the womb, but there was nothing to see. When born, your brain didn\u2019t know what the world looked like. It didn\u2019t know the statistics of the world. Of how many edges, corners, and curves there are. Of where they tend to be\u2014the consistent edges of horizons and tree trunks and houses, the consistent corners of paper and dice and windows, the constant curves of the moon and footballs and pies. Of how those edges, corners, and curves tend to relate to each other, to form trees and houses and footballs. And of how they tend to move, in graceful arcs and smooth trajectories, no sudden vanishing, reversing, or plummeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These statistics of the visible world are all learned by experience. Raise someone in a world with no vertical lines, and they will not be able to see a vertical object placed before them. Raise someone with one eye closed, and when reopened that eye will see nothing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Mark Humphries [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Beehive<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this black hive to-night
There swarm a million bees;
Bees passing in and out the moon,
Bees escaping out the moon,
Bees returning through the moon,
Silver bees intently buzzing,
Silver honey dripping from the swarm of bees
Earth is a waxen cell of the world comb,
And I, a drone,
Lying on my back,
Lipping honey,
Getting drunk with that silver honey,
Wish that I might fly out past the moon
And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Jean Toomer [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Undivided attention<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers, tied up
with canvas straps—like classical music\u2019s birthday gift
to the criminally insane—is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It dangles in April air from the neck of the movers\u2019 crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares and dirty white crisscross
patterns hanging like the second-to-last note of a concerto
played on the edge of the seat, the edge of tears, the edge
of eight stories up going over—it’s a piano being pushed
out of a window and lowered down onto a flatbed truck!—
and I\u2019m trying to teach math in the building across the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned?
All the greatest common factors are delivered by long-necked cranes
and flatbed trucks or come through everything, even air. Like snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year
my students rush to the window as if snow were more interesting
than math, which, of course, it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me teach like a Steinway,
spinning slowly in April air,
so almost-falling, so hinderingly
dangling from the neck of the movers\u2019 crane.
So on the edge of losing everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me teach like the first snow, falling.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Taylor Mali [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Pick One,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river’s commonplace book: After an old Hasidic master died, his followers sat around, talking about his life. One person wondered aloud, “What was the most important thing in the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":null,"activitypub_content_visibility":null,"activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federate","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Eleanor Lerman, Taylor Mali, et al.: \"Not Just What to Look At: What Even to *See* in the First Place\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1028,1393,4701,250,251,4159],"tags":[786,1647,4250,6031,6034,6035],"class_list":{"0":"post-27769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-everyday-life","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-paying-attention","10":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","11":"category-my-photography","12":"category-art","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-eleanor-lerman","16":"tag-taylor-mali","17":"tag-susan-murphy","18":"tag-mark-humphries","19":"tag-jean-toomer","20":"tag-too-much-to-see","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/pickone_johnesimpson_med.jpg?fit=1024%2C696&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-7dT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27769"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27788,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27769\/revisions\/27788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}