Look Again

Looking out the window with my grandson, Micah, is one of my favorite activities. When I am at his house we go to the couch, where I am content to sit and gaze while I wait for the action outside to begin. Micah, because he is only about two feet tall, needs to stand to get a good look out the window. But he also likes to jump, climb and move about on the couch in between acts.

By sitting there together we help each other. I keep him from falling off, and he keeps me young by showing me how to once again marvel at the world on the other side of the glass.  Because he sees through the eyes of a child – almost everything is amazing, almost everything is new and astonishing. He is flabbergasted much of the time. 

The wind picks up a leaf and dangles it in front of the window before carrying it away. Micah looks at me with his eyes and mouth wide open as if to say, “Did you see that?”

A squirrel scampers up a tree and we laugh. We hear a low rumble, and we look at each other, and then Micah squeals when a truck appears around the corner. A bird flies low over the yard, and it takes Micah’s breath away. Some time during the last fifty–five years I had forgot to remember how miraculous winged flight really is.

I am not sure when I stopped noticing the wonder of normal, everyday life. I suspect at one time I was probably like Micah – filled with awe at even the little things, the things that really matter. Last week, my sister sent me a picture of our family taken in 1968. I was a little kid back then – eight or nine years old; I was still young enough to be innocent and naïve, but old enough to not fall off the couch.

About that time I was perfecting my trademark drawing: The Happy Window. It’s a fairly simple concept – almost anyone can do it. It’s a drawing of a window with four panes. Then two circles are added for the eyes in the upper panes and a curve for the smile in the bottom ones.

I never progressed very far past that level as I got older. Once (in eighth grade I think) I was given an F minus by the art teacher for my drawing of an apple. I wasn’t finished when she snatched it off my desk; I had been struggling with the form – the shape of an apple is somewhere between a circle and a square.

Since I am somewhere between a child and an old man, perhaps it’s not too late for me to once again appreciate the spectacle that is going on around me. Every day life offers something to shout about, something to write about.

As the snow begins to falls outside my four–paned window creating a beautiful scene, I pause for a minute to pray.  I pray that as Micah ages, he will not lose his happy disposition, his sense of awe, his love of life and all things new and beautiful right outside his window.