TO SEE AS A CHILD

"Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different." Katherine Mansfield

Time that hangs heavily on one's hands is poisonous. It depletes body and soul. But properly put to use,  uninterrupted time is a  luxury.  A bit beyond high noo, chronologically, I often have long hours in which to  reevaluate  failed expectations, misplaced hopes, unworthy accomplishments. Empty hours generate regret and regret is corrosive. It  makes one literally eat one's hearts out. Never a great fan of passivity, I resist making every hour a husk of what might have been.  I think it is only fair that long life compensates me for its attendant losses with ability to  rediscover the beauty of ordinary things.  I want to to look at the world with the critical awareness of an artist.  I want to grow rich in joyous experiences of the commonplace. I am more than  willing to pass on the hunger  for higher social status, financial gain,  for recognition, for power, to the younger generation. What I want most, at this this stage--smack in the middle of my sixth decade-- is  to grow rich in joyous experience of the commonplace. 

What that means, in plain English,  is that I want  to notice the sheen on a lost luna moth wing, the crenelations inside an ivory-coloured  snail shell, the ethereal quality of seed heads about to take flight. I want the a transformative gift of being able to  elevate  ordinary objects to a higher sphere, as Pablo Neruda did, in his ODES TO COMMON THINGS, 

"Not only did they touch me,

or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death."

 I f I only glance at  the discarded  skin of head of garlic,  what registers in my mind is something fit for the compost heap. When at it slow and deliberately and it is a flower, a fairy's ball gown, an opalescent jelly fish,  a seashell,  a miniature balloon.

As a child I saw the world creatively. By midlife, this connection with the remarkable seemed to desert me only to return now that I have the leisure to be an active observer.  I can  become the thing I see,  as children and artists do.  I want to meet my world with every sense open to  the wonder of everyday things. I know that there is nothing new  in the idea of transformation through engagement. I choose to see Wittgenstein's duckrabbit  as two or more distinct images.

I become the thing I see is a refrain throughout Katherine Mansfield's writing. Her journals are full of detailed word painting only only an observer can execute.  I think, however, not of literature, but of life. Garlic skin/seashell, grapefruit/flower are two examples of how  my new awareness results in re-creation, and recreation. that is my goal. Mu goal is to see as a child does, intensely, passionately. Children  are able see  solidity in shadows and immateriality in solid objects. To them the universe is always in a process of becoming. Artists whose inner child is alive and well,   see beyond  the obvious. That is one of the best antidote to the poison of empty hours.