One thing I do well to remember is that there is power in noticing what you notice. Of all the sensory stimuli to which a human’s attention can be drawn it’s interesting to see what the psyche chooses in a given moment — especially if the selection is a repeat or if it’s new and keen.
(Here I mean while in a place of literal or relative calm. When in a fear state the exercise is less interesting and more predictable.)
On the first day of the current month, midway through a late walk, I stopped at the entrance to a neighborhood school. I stood for a few minutes beneath a row of lights. I held up a retaining wall. I hugged a beam. I twisted my body with one arm extended, then the other. That is, I stretched my calves, my back, my chest. The school sits at the edge of a small woods and, as I went through these motions, I heard a rustling. This sounded like the doings of a creature larger than a squirrel. It was, after all, late for squirrels. I looked over the wall, past an old tree, and into the darkness; nothing. After more rustling, I looked up. Perched on the tree branch, as if poking its head out a window, sat a raccoon.
This raccoon was neither old nor young. I don’t normally consider raccoons to be among the most beautiful creatures in creation but the distinguishing aspect of this one was that she (in truth, I couldn’t tell the raccoon’s gender) was striking: Her eyes glowed in the night light. Her mask didn’t project sadness, as a raccoon often does, but rather curiosity. This girl cast her unflinching eyes on mine from a few feet away. We shared this mutual regard for some minutes. I had the sense there wasn’t anything this raccoon was thinking about other than me. Eventually, it occurred that she might have offspring nearby and that that’s why she kept an eye on this guy and his strange maneuvers. Sure enough, a moment later, a kit struggled up the trunk of another nearby tree.
What to me had registered as a serendipitous inter-species meeting of the minds was, of course, a different experience to the non-human animal.
Why did I pay attention to that sound? In fact, this wasn’t especially noteworthy perception on my part. In this place and time, there weren’t many competing noises. The most interesting part about what I noticed, at least to my way of thinking, is how what I noticed during this encounter tied together other experience.
As I had finished my stretches and the bugs started also turned their attention to me, I walked down the sidewalk, away from the school, to a parkway along the Mississippi River. A pair of humans walked by chatting. In my memory one of them was a woman, maybe both of them were, and that’s all I can say with any certainty. Instead of paying attention to the people, the tree-lined parkway, the river, the night sky, or any number of other possibilities, I was compelled instead to turn back toward the school light. From this remove I saw the two raccoons, now on the ground, roaming about the grass beneath those trees. I liked seeing them together, doing their thing. I liked the sense I got that any fear my presence had added had subsided as they resume their nocturnal activities.
As I walked along the parkway, I was, I see now, not just mid-way through a walk. My thoughts picked up a pattern from the previous day, a pattern that would continue in the days that followed this one: pairs. My awareness was and would continue to be drawn to handsome couples walking down the street; to birds flying in twos; to buddy rabbits. Following from this encounter with the raccoons I will have dreams of partners — such as of seeing an old hockey line-mate. In one especially keen dream I’m with woman I just met (just met within the dream, I mean) whom I knew I would marry (again in the dream).
What does any of this matter? I’m not sure whether it does. At least not yet. Still, this pattern of pairs, of partners, it’s worth observing, also mirrored a shift internally. That is, after a sustained period — here I mean years, not months — in which there was little drive to seek partnership, of late I started to feel energy in that direction. I noticed a new desire arose during waking dreams and fantasies. During this time I would also happen to meet (in waking life) a lovely lady and our conversation, which was surprisingly easy and pleasantly personal (I’m allergic to small-talk), stirred further this sense of desire for connection with another. This felt like the start of a long-term conversation I want to have. (Expressing this desire is altogether different than saying this woman, in particular, is the one with whom I can, will, or should have that conversation.)
This new-in-me desire may well fade as quickly as it appeared. And, no doubt, the pairings that captured my attention will cede to awareness of other things (or nothing; I’m no Zen master). In fact, in the time it’s taken me to put this experience into a coherent utterance, I have already shifted again, as normal bodily and emotional impulses don’t subside for long. The point isn’t that I arrived at a conclusion, or chose a new life path, but rather to observe that alignment between the external world, my conscious, and my unconscious — and that this alignment suggested a potential shift in direction.
In other words, the surprisingly enchanting eyes of a raccoon stimulated memories, recent and not, and primed me to notice a pattern that might portend new experience.
Of course, quite possibly, I just spent 972 words on a delusion. If the latter, please don’t pinch me. The exercise of noticing what I noticed, come what may, is its own reward.