Wonderfully Normal
A few weeks ago I took one of my best friends to Montana to celebrate her 30th birthday. Our very first night, in the bathroom of a fancy seafood restaurant, I glanced up to see this magical wallpaper.
Each fish had a mosaic quality about it, scales shining like the well-known children’s book character Rainbow Fish. You could almost feel them swimming off the wall.
On vacation, even bathrooms are pretty.
My first instinct when I saw the paper was to think, “HOLLY. Remember, life is beautiful all the time! You need to pay attention every day like you do when you’re traveling.”
But, after chastising myself for not looking for beauty at home, I paused. “Maybe it’s not that simple.”
I walked back past our table, the remnants of a meal that had filled my taste buds and heart with joy. Half-eaten cake and warm drinks enjoyed on a perfectly chilly patio; the sun setting over literally the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen; my dear friend waiting in the car, days of rest ahead of us.
Of course I noticed the wallpaper! Of course! I had just bought a meal without worrying about money. The air was quiet and still—the city noise, light and air pollution I am used to was gone. I didn’t feel strained relationally. I knew my one job was to be present with this one friend. The constant sense that I am not doing enough at work was paused. In other words, there was room to pay attention.
Paying attention, not passive, is an act, a pressing into life. And pressing in requires something of us. Pressing in is work. Pressing in is hard when we are already feeling stretched thin, empty, burnt out.
I am sure there is pretty wallpaper I am missing here in my daily life. If I went outside more often, there are sunsets I could see. But the laundry room floor seems to always be covered in clothes, and it’s 3 p.m. and I haven’t responded to a single text. I am tired. My eyes are half shut—in more ways than one.
Maybe we can’t beat ourselves into being awake. Maybe scolding myself into seeing glittery fish on bathroom walls isn’t the way to marvel at life more often. Maybe when I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.
Maybe the ground needs tilling for our attention to be ripe. Maybe this is not just a personal struggle but a systemic one. Maybe paying attention is just going to be hard until we address student debt and loneliness and inaccessible mental healthcare. Maybe the caretakers of children and the elderly aren’t going to make it out for the sunset very often until we provide them the support they need. Maybe while Black mothers are holding their breath waiting for their sons and husbands and brothers to get home they are going to miss the music playing around the corner. Maybe the ground of paying attention needs watering we cannot do on our own.
The tension, of course, in all of it is that we have to be paying attention to see why paying attention is so hard. Sometimes we have to show up and till the ground even when our muscles are sore. We have to look towards the horizon and believe that someday we can make a world where sunsets being seen become wonderfully normal.
As we push towards a world where paying attention is given the room it needs to thrive, may we be gentle with ourselves. May we in the smallest of ways carve out places that do welcome the act of paying attention. May we plan for ourselves ten minutes of “vacation” wherever we can fit it in.
9 a.m. - Breakfast
9:30 a.m. - Walk the Dog
10 a.m. - Pay Attention
10:10 a.m. - Laundry
May we turn our eyes to the pain, knowing it is with attention we heal. May we turn our eyes to the beauty, knowing it heals. May we hold with grace every moment in between where we simply can’t name beauty or pain because the world hasn’t yet given us the healed spaces we need for paying attention.