One of my favorite quotes in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is this:
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
My subconscious pulls draws upon it frequently getting me to think about where I might need to look around. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while - it was a quote I added to my curated senior page in my high school year book. Yet, despite this, it’s something I can forget.
Slow down.
Look up.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started to look up more. While I’ve always loved the trees and wildflowers around me and could identify a handful of them, I am paying more attention, committing names to memory. I’m learning to know the birds that wake me so joyfully every morning (robins, magpies, collard doves and house finches) and the ones who host boisterous parties every evening in our trio of spruce trees (pine siskins). As I do, I feel this knowledge more strongly connecting me to this place I call home.
There is something about looking around that teaches us more than what we get solely from books.
Being in and paying attention to what others need from our relationships teaches us more than reading about how they should work.
Walking in the woods better acquaints us with the plants of the forest, how they smell, where they grow, how they feel and how they work together.
Watching how my kids flow through the world instead of just listening to what they tell me adds their non-verbal and physical spirit to inform me of how they are really feeling.
Last weekend, on an early morning bike ride, the cool mountain air was filled with an intoxicatingly sweet smell. That smell conjured a memory and immediately transported me to Scotland where one year ago, I learned about gorse, what it looks like, what it smells like. In May, the vibrant yellow flowers were in full bloom and their aroma has lodged itself in my brain, inextricably fusing with core memories of that trip. For me, Scotland smells of gorse. And in that moment on my bike, my nose brought me back to a run along cliffs overlooking the North Atlantic, a hike to the top of Mt. Cairngorm, shrouded in mist, and a late evening sunset at Arthur’s seat overlooking the architectural delight that is Edinburgh. I wasn’t smelling gorse on my bike through the mountains of Utah, but the scent was similar. I had to know what it was.
Having identified antelope bitterbrush the week prior, I recognized the ubiquitous bush along each side of the gravel road I was riding. It was in full bloom - little yellow flowers popping from woody stalks. I didn’t know the flowers were aromatic. I didn’t know the smell was, for me, related to the scent of gorse.
I looked up and now I know.
Being “in” anything offers the opportunity to do just that. Instead of watching life or a situation whiz by or skimming its surface, we can actually dive into our surroundings, feel the breeze, smell the flowers, learn about our people. I’m learning which wildflowers bloom first, that there is an innocent-looking plant called death camas that lives just above our house and the bulbs are quite deadly. Another plant, field bindweed, whose white flowers look so beautiful adorning the side of the trail also pops up voraciously in my garden, and I don’t mind now that I know what it is.
A friend was asking me about the flowers along the trail on a recent run, and I was able to share my knowledge with her. I loved that sense of purpose and connection.
These past couple of weeks, I’ve explored the literal feeling of being “in it,” embracing what the trails and the mountains have to offer just for the sake of being themselves. And in doing so, I feel more connected to myself.
This quote from Rachel Carson’s Edge of the Sea is a great reminder of what we gain by spending time being “in it” and looking around.
To understand the shore, it is not enough to catalog its life. Understanding comes only when, standing on a beach, we can sense the long rhythms of earth and sea that sculptured its land-forms and produced the rock and sand of which it is composed; when we can sense with the eye and ear of the mind the surge of life beating always at its shores — blindly, inexorably pressing for a foothold.
May this quote and the wisdom of Ferris Bueller also inspire you to be “in it” and look around.
In case you’ve never seen it, here’s a quick clip: