Looking upward in the golden hour in winter, which is pretty early. Between four or five o’clock here in Virginia. The wisps of cloud go by on a crisp breeze. My eyes catch the golden flutter of the grey and brown yellow flecks of bare branches against the cold blue sky. Islands of green puncture the canopy. The loblolly pines, abundant with pinecones, tall and skinny where I am, competing for the sun, have grown top heavy and almost look like Doctor Suess drawings brought to life. The speckling in the green against the bare branches and the occasional early pink bud highlighted in the setting sun is particularly beautiful.
I’ve got work to do inside, but I’ve had it for the week. I’m running into a wall. The kiddos got off the bus and one of them, my little gal, seven, wants to spend time with me. Literally have been working for thirty-six hours in the last two days. They want to see numbers. I’ll show them all the numbers. Maybe it’s not a panic. But it feels like one to me.
It’s okay.
Everyone’s busy. I understand their focus has been elsewhere for months.
I try not to make it about me.
But it feels like it’s about me.
To be clear. It’s not about me.
But it feels like it’s about me.
I’m looking from the ramp that leads into my shed. I’ve laid down to gaze up, identifying cloud shapes with my daughter. A scorpion. A crow. A dragon. A firefly. And more. On days like this, when the breeze is strong, the picture will change if you wait a minute.
It’s cool, but comfortable. With the warmth from the sun on my face it feels nice.
I’m holding my camera, long zoom lens in place. I’m attempting to catch sight of small colored birds flitting around in the top branches. I hear them, occasionally see them but am not fast enough yet to zoom, focus, and capture the play. I could probably do it faster with the autofocus. But to get good, I want to let it be what my eye sees. I’m staying with a manual focus for now.
There’s something about these tiny things living up high, making their home in this world one part removed from me but so close. Have you ever had the chance to climb to the top of a tree and look out over your town? Maybe you can see the far-off spire of a nearby church. Or a water tower not visible from the ground.
If you were me and could climb to the top of the tallest tree here, you may be able to see the top of a rollercoaster from Busch Gardens popping out from between the green. I’m not completely sure, but you might even be able to see the river. You can definitely see the lake that’s at the other end of my neighborhood. I’m fascinated with this effect of perspective.
When I moved to Virginia from New York as a kid, the effect was magnified. Wide open space. Smaller buildings. Trees forever. I wasn’t even in town. It was the sticks. I spent my time in the woods, losing shoes to the swamp, climbing everything. One popular climbing destination was the (at the time) derelict firetower. If you live here, you know the one.
Climbing up to the top and looking out in the distance you just saw housetops and more trees and farm fields. It was something to behold. How does this whole world exist? And we only perceive the few feet in front of us most of the time.
And lying here looking up into the treetops, instead of down, I’m reminded of that feeling. It’s a reminder that the world is bigger than any of us. My daughter referred to the treetops as another neighborhood. And so it is. A world that sometimes doesn’t even know about the ground and vice versa.
And there is one in the deep ground, the shallow ground, the surface, the tree trunk, the tree top, in the shallows of the water, and in the deeps of the water. And for whatever is there, it is their entire world. And they likely have no idea that the others exist.
And I sit here with my camera, attempting to capture something that has no consideration of me, speaking with my daughter, not even accounting for the immensity of what’s beyond the sky, and wondering — what other worlds sit right in front of me that I don’t perceive? Reality is perception after all. And if the deep fish don’t know about the surface. And the desert dwellers don’t know about the sea. And the bacteria on my skin don’t know about me. And so on.
What don’t I see?
My lack of awareness causes effects — some benign, some bad.
Whether to my environment or to my fellow person, it’s a consideration I have to make. Some things we can’t do anything about. We can’t know.
And while I can’t necessarily do no harm for certain. I know I’m actively engaging with my daughter’s world at this moment. Hoping I’m doing no harm. But I don’t always know. It’s hard to tell.
There are other worlds though. People that I don’t think of or know.
But to at least consider the other worlds, the other people, even the unknowable other, each in their own world, is important.