January 8
With every walk with nature one receives far more than one seeks. And the great spectacle never ends: somewhere, every hour, the sun is rising; somewhere else a morning is always breaking.
Steep Trails · John of the Mountains (freely rendered)
Listening mode
With every walk with nature one receives far more than one seeks. And the great spectacle never ends: somewhere, every hour, the sun is rising; somewhere else a morning is always breaking.
When you leave a party early, someone tells you the next day what happened afterwards: a song that suddenly had everyone singing along, a long conversation on the stairs. For a moment you're annoyed, as if you had missed something that was really meant for you.
Yet even if you had stayed, you would only have experienced a part of it. You might not have been sitting on the stairs at all, and the song might have reached you in the kitchen, in the middle of another sentence. Being there is always already a selection. What you miss doesn't grow larger because you leave. You only get told about it.
There is a relief in this that isn't entirely comfortable. Things happen anyway, with you or without you. That frees you from the duty of taking everything in. At the same time it takes away the idea that anything depends on your watching.
On your way home that evening the street was empty and wet. From an open window on the third floor came piano music; someone was practising the same four bars over and over. Nobody told you about that the next day.
