I watch. I record
what I see. I weigh the meaning of details as if reading tea leaves. It means something - all this means something. But what?
I have to show up. I have to watch. I have to record the details of our lives. I have to probe for what it means.
It may mean nothing. It may mean everything. On any given day, you do not know what you'll be given, but you know you'll be given something. That's how things are - an opaque mass of detail until you can discern the pattern. As I was leaving Dairy Queen a little while ago, two girls with dyed hair went in. Hair dyed so obviously black, one of them; the other such a drab and uniform wood-stain color. I mistook them for high school girls. Later I was parked in front of the grocery store and those two girls parked their car on the street nearby, walked the half block to the call center, and went in to their jobs making or taking phone calls. The sign on the window of the building says the call center is "Now Hiring."
To see pattern, to have anything be more than an interesting detail, I suppose you need more than one point of reference. Which means you need to stay long enough to see the same thing at a different time; or you need to move and see the same thing from a different perspective.
Which means I show up, I watch, I make my notes. I ponder the meaning of it all. Sometimes I have to shake it all off as more than I can apprehend. Sometimes a little meaning glints at me. You never know which it will be - that's why you have to show up and pay attention.
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