I work a nine to five office job and go to bed at approximately the same time every night. I often eat the same meal for dinner for weeks on end, and thinking of upcoming vacations in which my normal schedule is interrupted often gives me feelings of anxiety. When I’m deciding on a pedicure color, I always pick red, alternating between a bright cherry and a deep burgundy, learning the hard way after choosing coral once on a whim that switching it up is just not my thing.
The most ridiculous thing I have ever done is book a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas with my girlfriend and flying out the very next day, skipping work to do so. I could not have been more proud of my impulse decision – thinking I was living out my youth as every twenty-two year old should – although, admittedly, none of my coworkers were expected to go into the office on that Friday because our internet was down, and my phone was glued to one hand in case a work email came in (while the other held onto a margarita). My friend and I joked that she would keep me fun and I would keep her alive.
I am a creature of habit. And I’m very happy with my regular routine.
Extraordinary is not a term I would use to define my life, nor would I define it as melancholy or negative. It certainly feels more mundane and ordinary than anything else. However, as of recent, I am finding that I am struck particularly by things that I encounter on a daily basis. It is as though I am really seeing things for the first time, and hearing things that I have never heard before, despite the fact that what strikes me are those things that I have both seen and heard before, possibly every day.
My commute is one that I sometimes take for granted: I walk to and from work, passing the Space Needle and Key Arena on my way. I often leave the office just as the sun is setting, which paints the most glorious array of colors across the sky. Street lights usually turn on in the thirty minutes it takes me to walk home, which lend a warm glow reflected in the slick streets still wet from an afternoon shower. I usually think how what I am seeing would make a great scene for a movie, or would make an excellent painting, but never do I stop to think, “this is what I am seeing right now, with my own eyes. I am not watching a movie or looking at a painting. I am living this in this moment, as it is happening.” On a normal day after work, I acknowledge the beauty around me, but I do not allow myself to take it in. On a normal day, I do not give it enough attention to really, truly strike me.
This was normal, until just a few weeks ago, when the view of my daily commute struck me like a bat meeting a baseball for a home run. It hit me hard. I was hurrying home as usual, thinking of how I needed to get quickly to the next thing with as little distraction as possible, until I glanced up to see the Space Needle, highlighted on one side by the setting sun, framed perfectly by the silhouettes of two houses on my street.
This is not something I see rarely. In fact, the Space Needle and most of Seattle’s skyline can be seen from my living room window. The Needle is so pointedly the focus of my house’s architectural positioning that we signed our lease without hesitation, hardly realizing how poorly built it really is. On my way home on this evening, though, it felt as though I was really seeing it for the first time, despite the fact that I eat breakfast with the Needle every single morning.
Similarly, I was listening to the radio in my car on the way to go hiking last weekend. I was singing along to a song that I have heard at least a hundred times. I know the lyrics, I know the tune; like the Space Needle, this is a song that I have encountered on a near daily basis for at least several months. I might even be a little bit tired of it.
For the first time, though, I heard and I listened and I understood. I sang along, “I know who goes before me. I know who stands behind. The God of Angel Armies is always by my side.”
The God of Angel Armies is always by my side.
How is it that I hadn’t understood this before? How is it that I had heard this a hundred times and only now, this hundredth time, was I so overwhelmed to the point of tears?
I hurry through things. I am comfortable in my daily routine, and because I think it is mundane, it becomes mundane to my closed eyes and closed ears. I cannot see nor hear the wonder that surrounds me in everything – including an overplayed radio song and a normal commute – when I believe that I have seen and heard it all. On the contrary – nothing about the daily is mundane.There is so much to see and so much to hear for the first time, as long as you open your heart to the extraordinary in the things that you find ordinary.
Recurrence of the wonderful does not make it any less wondrous.
The Renovation Project 