Noticing with Intent

What are the ways you go about noticing? Can you pick out different seasons by the quality of their light? This summer, I’ve set out to learn the whistles of songbirds. A few weeks in, I’ve found my morning walks are filled with life. The greenway by my childhood house is home to nuthatches, robins and barred owls. I’ve walked this trail my entire life, but only this week have I learned the different grasses by the roadside: crabgrass, stilt grass, English ivy, fescue, thyme. Noticing, it’s something we all do without thinking: the fly on the windowsill, the squirrel at the birdfeeder. It’s also possible to notice with intention: the snacks our friends buy for themselves, the books our parents read or types of jewelry our partner wears. We can notice how we respond to stress, hunger, and the subtle ways our loved ones communicate their needs. Noticing with intent helps shape our engagement with the world, with each other. We can choose what to see, decide what’s important to us, and share this importance with those around us.

Noticing with intent helps shape our engagement with the world, with each other.

Visiting my parents a week after Mother’s Day, a vase of carnations still sits on the dinner table. My mother tells me that after thirty-six years of marriage, my father finally got her a bouquet of her favorite flower. “He usually gets me an assortment,” she says, “but I like carnations because they smell great and last a long time.” It isn’t too late to notice the things you’ve been missing. I shared my new interest in birdsong with my parents. We take long walks by the lake and try to spot the titmouse calling from the nearby woods. My new noticing practice has become a form of bonding between us. We cook dinner. I bake bread. We talk about the different grasses on the greenway, the silver of sunset behind a sheet of cloud cover, and we go on like this for the week of my visit. Now I’m back in New York, away from the chirping and flutter of my childhood home, but still no further from my parent’s care. This morning, my mom texted me that she saw a goldfinch on her morning walk. “And a deer,” she says, “a yearling buck with a couple small spikes atop his head.”