Category: Free Inquiry

Question for this week: What are the things I notice about myself that I have not noticed before?

Growing up my grandmother would always get her hair died, in fact she still does. She rocks a beautiful shade of chestnut brown and she looks stunning. She would say “if I ever have to move into a care home you have to make sure they look after my hair, I don’t want any grey hair!” I would laugh and say “Ok, Grammie I can do that.” While there is nothing whatsoever wrong with dying your hair, I wonder how many of us (particularly women) are afraid of growing old, of looking old? Maybe it’s because there are so many advertisements for anti-aging cream and wrinkle reducing formula care. But what is wrong with growing old? I think its a beautiful thing to be able to grow old and say you have lived a full life. Recently I was taking a picture of the ocean and I for some friends who live abroad. When I looked at the photo I realized that I had smile lines and I thought “Wow isn’t that amazing!” You see each one of those smile lines represents a friend or a family member who has brought joy to my life. There is no beauty product that I would want to use that would reduce my little wrinkles because they represent times of laughter and belly aches from trying to catch my breath after a friend has said a good joke; they are priceless. Yes, there are unfortunate parts to growing old, like the aches and the pains that come with age, but there is so much wonderment to share with others as you build and share upon the story that is your life.

Everyday, on my way to the bus stop, I pass by a bench that is outside a retirement center. The bench is a place for the retirement community members to have a smoke and have community time with others who do the same. As their faces become familiar, I find myself wondering what are their stories, what do the years upon their faces and silver lined hair represent in the story that is their lives? Do they still worry about those darn wrinkles or have they accepted the beauty in them?

So, as we age we must remember the privilege that it is to grow up. To have those grey hairs and wrinkled faces. Not everyone gets to grow up to see the beauty in aging, so we must carry that responsibility as we do.

Photo Taken By Carlee Cleveland on Iphone

Question for this week: How does noticing color change the way I see the world?

I am recently new to the shores of the west coast in British Columbia, and so this is my first autumn season watching the seasons change in a coastal region. I have spent time living in England so I thought it would be quite similar with the rainy season and it getting so very gray outside, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the changing of seasons here. With it now being the second week of November I feel I have truly experienced the changing of the seasons of a coastal region, and it has been beautiful. It started out very gradually, with just a few things changing at one. In fact I thought things were never going to really change because it was so hot the first few weeks of September, but then gradually things started to shift. The mornings became just a little bit colder and had more fog, and there was the classic changing of the leaves as well. I found myself often looking down as all the colorful leaves had dropped to the ground. It is funny how as humans we have January as our start of change; a new year, new challenges or goals etc.. But I find the majority of change happens in September (maybe that is because I have been a student for to long haha). I also find that sometimes I look at a rainy season as gloomy, but I think my opinion is changing and the rainy season or the season of change has shown me how colorful things shine in grey skies or dull backgrounds. I was walking along my campus and I had to stop to take a tree that I was so gob smacked by. It was a brilliant shade of red and it was planted all by itself in the courtyard of a university building. It had been raining all day which sometimes that can get me in the brain pattern of “keep your head down, get to where you need to go.” However, this beautiful tree was so vibrant in it’s color on such a wet and gray day that I had to just stop and appreciate it. It was a good reminder to just stop, look up and take it all in, all the change, all the beauty. What has made you stop and and look up this week?

Noticing colors like this vibrant tree has made me realize what an amazing thing it is that I can truly take all of this in, that I have been given eyes that can see something so wonderful. It leaves me with profound gratitude.

Photos Taken By Carlee Cleveland

Question for this week: Does noticing others, even strangers, make me more connected to them?

Recently, I have been very interested in social dancing. I grew up in a small town, where there wasn’t a lot of community dance events other than when someone got married or a graduation party. Even my school didn’t put on dances for the students, they tried but the interest just was not there. So, when I moved to Victoria and heard that there was a big social dance community here, I was so excited. I imagined social dancing to be kind of like time travelling; going back to my grandparents era where people would ask others to dance and it would strike up a conversation naturally. So, the past few weeks I have been going to swing dance and fiddle dance events and it has been wonderful! Every time I go I notice different things. Firstly, I notice how wholesome it is to go ask someone to dance and get treated with respect! I noticed that it did not matter how proficient a dancer you are, those who are really experienced will still like dancing with you and still ask even if they know you are a beginner. Lastly, the biggest thing that I notice is nobody is always on their phone even if they might take a picture here and there. Every time I go, I notice that if people are choosing to not dance or to have a break they either sit on the side and watch or they strike up a conversation with those around you. This got me thinking although this space is wonderful and needed it is very unique. As humans we are very social creatures and the feeling of being connected is deeply ingrained into human culture. However, I think I’ve noticed that in North America at least we more individualistic. That’s not necessarily because we want to be, it is just the way we have been moving forward. We tend to stick to ourselves, to mind our own business and get set about in our ways, tuning out things that we feel we don’t want to intake, such as when we listen to music on a bus. Our technology that we use can be a tool but also a distraction, like previously mentioned in my other posts.

There is a song I like by Josiah Queen called Things That Matter. In this song there is a lyric that strikes me:

“I saw an accident this morning on the interstate
And the first thing on my mind was “running late”
I didn’t stop and pray that they were safe, I never thought about it after
When did I start missing the things that matter?

Often I think we do not see ourselves as connected to others so we get so interconnected and preoccupied with ourselves. These lyric points out the fact of where our priorities might rest. What if we all noticed each other a little more? What if we brought that community aspect back to our daily lives? What if we loved our neighbor a little more, even better yet, what if we cared about someone we never met? I know this is a large concept to come from a little thing like social dancing but I think it has been something i’ve been reminded about the more I invest into community, whether thats a church communisty, school communities, or dance communities. After going to these dances and meeting people I would not have previously met on my own, I’m reminded that we are all just looking for some form of connection, and that in itself is what connects us. What does connection look like to you?

Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash

Question for this week: What does stooping to focus on something else do for me?

Ever since I was young, I have been enamored with the sky.  There are so many different aspects to it, the clouds, the shape, the colour, the fog. Whether it is night or day, I find myself sneaking glimpses at its beauty. However, that’s not always the case. It can get so busy during our workdays that simply stopping and looking up isn’t something we consider doing. The other day, I was working in my living room when I noticed that the sky was absolutely stunning. My roommate (who is a post-degree elementary education student) was busy doing schoolwork at the table when I said, “Look at the sky!”

She looked up and said, “Wow, that’s beautiful.” And then she said something that I think we all need to do: she said, “I think I need to look up more often.” 

Isn’t that the point? We spend so long looking at things that are meant for productivity or enjoyment, like schoolwork, work, or even our phones, that we miss the beautiful things that are right in front of us. Don’t get me wrong, those things are inherently important, but if we don’t notice things that have natural beauty and importance, what does that do to us? 

I personally love the sky, and it boasts so much beauty in every season, and reminds me how big the world truly is, and honestly, it just makes me smile and check in with myself and my surroundings. It gives me a second to pause and breathe and say Isn’t that pretty or look at those colours! Below I have some of my favorite pictures I have taken from the sky, some are recent and some are from a while ago, which one do you see the most beauty in?

I feel like when I stop and look at something, and I mean truly look at it. I’m tuning out all other distractions and giving myself a moment to simply breathe and reset; this fills me with extreme gratitude.

Photos Taken by Carlee Cleveland

So my challenge for you is to look up and see the beauty in something that is always there.  

Question for this week: How does noticing other people affect me?

We have all heard the expression, put yourself into someone else’s shoes, but do you ever find yourself realizing how many shoes there are around you? I know it sounds kinda silly, doesn’t it? However, I often find myself realizing that there are so many people all around us, each doing their own thing, living their own lives. There is a word for this: it is called sonder. The dictionary definition of this is “the feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles.” I found myself observing people as I went about my week, and as I am a university student, a lot of my observations were made around other university students. When I ride the bus, there are tons of people, and I mean tons of people; sometimes, there is barely any standing room. However, it is always interesting to notice the little things. Some students who look stressed and are working on last-minute assignments as they board the bus, while others who look so carefree are listening to their favourite songs. I often find myself wondering what their lives are like, what plans do they have to seize the day; is today just like any other day, or did something big happen today? Who is missing someone, who is ecstatic as they’ve landed a dream job? 

This little exercise of noticing isn’t just something that I do and then forget about. I believe it leads me into a more compassionate lifestyle. I think the more I think and notice others, maybe it’s just that little extra bit of humanity we can give back to the world. I think what I have noticed in my life is that our world is quite individualistic. Oftentimes, I even find myself turning on my phone when I am waiting for something or someone, so that I don’t look out of place, or maybe I turn on my headphones to block out the noise of the world when maybe there was someone I could befriend. These things aren’t inherently bad, but I wonder what they do to us if we don’t put them down and start noticing those around us. 

My theory was that if everyone started to notice those around us, whether it’s on the bus, walking downtown, at work, or through campus, maybe we would start to see that everyone deals with their own battles and victories. Maybe our compassion for one another would grow. Maybe we would start talking to strangers, build more community, and see so much value in a stranger. Just a theory, but I feel as though I can see it in my own life, and that sonder is something I will continue to ponder as I learn more about The Art of Noticing.

Photo by sidorenko on Unsplash

Definition by : SONDER Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

My question for this week : What does it mean to truly notice something and how does that impact me?

Have you ever stopped to notice how the light shimmers through the trees or how the birds sound in the morning versus in the evening? Do these things really matter, or are they just the mundane aspects of life that are found in our world? There is a concept called The Art of Noticing, first developed by Rob Walker, who wrote a book by the same name. The concept of this art format is to change the patterns or ways you view and interact with this world. There are 5 categories to The Art of Noticing: Looking, Sensing, Going places, Connecting with others, and Being alone. There are many techniques he suggests that can be used to harness this art, yet for my purposes, I would like to play around with this idea of noticing without following specific rules, for what is art without play? Will noticing the little things around me change the way I view or engage with the world? My goal for this blog is to explore the things I’ve noticed throughout the week, no matter how big or small, for the great purpose of this exploration is in the details of the everyday. 

We live in an age where business rules over lives, where we run from one place to the next, catching our breath as we go. This sense of magic over the mundane has somehow seemed to diminish as we grow up.  So, whether it’s through photographs, videos, or simply my writing, I will share with you the things I notice, the things hidden in plain sight. As I explore these things, maybe more childlike wonder will return to me, and I can once again find magic in the mundane. 

I will leave you with this little video of the wind in the tall grass that I took a little while back. It made me think of how lovely it would be to have a picnic here and watch the grass do its dance as it sways back and forth beneath the trees. I encourage you as well to go somewhere and do something that makes you pause and simply notice the world around you. 

Video Taken by Carlee Cleveland On iPhone

The Art of Noticing

Website for more information on The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker

Rob Walker. Rob Walker RSS. (n.d.). https://robwalker.net/noticing/