I enjoy people watching. Of course, just when you think I’ve seen it all, someone surprises me.
That’s right, this woman is flossing her teeth. I saw her while sitting in the waiting room at the dermatologist. She was chatting with her daughter, getting all that gunk out from between her teeth as if the other dozen people weren’t there at all. She was so absorbed in public self-care that she didn’t even notice me taking pictures.
I’m not sure that anyone else noticed her. Most people were either scrolling on their phones or dozing while they waited. I could have photographed everyone sitting there. I doubt anyone would notice. But that’s kind of creepy, isn’t it?
I’ve often wondered if anyone is noticing or watching me? On any given day, probably not. Everyone lives in their own little bubble.
So I can people-watch to my hearts content. No one sees me. No one cares. I’ll be sure to share my favorite observations with all of you.
My wife and were sitting out back admiring the half moon hanging out in the southern sky. The evening was just a few degrees cooler and a bit less humid, so it was a beautiful evening on the patio.
We weren’t alone. The Great Dane was with us, sitting on the stone pavers, looking up at the moon. She did not simply look up and then head off to sniff something, but saw there and gazed up for a few minutes.
I never thought dogs saw the world two-dimensionally. She is usually focused on what’s in front of her, or at least what’s in front of her nose. But she notices birds sitting up on utility poles and wires. She hears and watches single engine planes pass overhead. She scans the pine trees at dawn, hoping to catch a glimpse of the owl hooting overhead.
l’m fascinated by what our dogs notice as we walk through the neighborhood or a nearby park. I don’t think her eyesight is all that great, but she never misses a motionless bunny by the side of the road, a tiny lizard stuck to the side of the house, or a hawk gliding just overhead.
In her “Choose to be Curious” podcast, Menka Sanghi encourages , “Every morning, before you look at your screen, just make it a rule that you’re going to see the sky.”
It’s a habit. I wake up, grab my phone and wander into the kitchen to start up the coffee maker. When the screen come to life, I’ll see notifications about a completed dishwasher cycle or an iOS update. My screen displays the current temperature and the number of view of my blog. I’ll glance at the weather for the day and notice how many new emails I’ve received overnight. I get sucked into the digital world before I’m even awake.
But what if I were to go outside and look at the sky? I’m going to find out. First thing in the morning, I’ll step out onto the back patio with the big dog and look up.
It’s still dark out. I notice the phase of the moon. There’s usually a planet close to it. I wonder which one it is? First I hear, then I see the lights of an airplane passing overhead.
Or the night sky is giving way to early morning orange and pink colors in the east. I wonder how many hues of pink and orange there are?
There may be clouds in the distance. Or they may completely cover the sky. Sometimes they just hang there. But other days they are racing by swaying trees as a storm approaches.
Occasionally, I’ll see the sun peeking over the trees. It’s so bright I have to shade my eyes.
Once in a very great while, since I live it Florida, it will be chilly enough that I’ll see my breath in the air. I won’t need to check the weather. I know it’s cold.
It only takes a moment, but in that instant I’m connected to the day, to the natural world, not manmade tech.
I put that mantra on the cover of my journal: Sky before screen.
In a recent newsletter I read, “Noticing sparks gratitude; gratitude sharpens our noticing.” (It might have been Rob Walker’s “The Art of Noticing,” but I haven’t yet found it in my emails.)
I spend a lot of time noticing things on my daily dog walks. Sometimes I count how many houses have a Ring doorbell. Or interesting items at the curb on trash day. I like to whistle back and forth with the birds at dawn. I’m annoyed when I notice newspapers sitting in driveways for weeks.
I have many reasons to be thankful. I’m healthy and can take long walks with the dogs. I live in a safe neighborhood, know a lot of my neighbors, and live where it’s easy to be outside just about every day.
So the cycle of noticing and gratitude resonates with me. When I am tuned in to what’s going on around me, I find new reasons to be thankful. Once I start giving thanks, I begin noticing more things around me I’m thankful for. It’s a good upward spiral that develops both my gratitude and my awareness.
One morning, I notice beautiful colors in the eastern dawn sky. I whisper, “Thank you,” for an amazing sight, for the coolness, and the quiet of the morning. As I see the morning approach, tall pines escape the darkness, and I am thankful that there are still a few lots without houses.
Then I notice how many new houses there are in our neighborhood. I remember building our house decades ago, when these roads were lined with wooded lots. I’m so thankful we were able to build a house where we raised our children.
That’s how it works. Observation directs your mind towards the positive things in your life, spawning gratitude. As you ponder your blessings, you notice more good things around you. Again and again and again.
It’s such a cool concept. I try to initiate the cycle every time I’m out walking, starting with thanks or observation. Give it a try.
On a recent walk with my Great Dane, I shocked a young man back to reality.
Our two mile loop isn’t far from the community’s middle school, and on this day we were walking right around afternoon dismissal time.
I would guess the young man was in 7th grade, weighed down with a substantial backpack, head buried in his cell phone. As we closed the gap, I shook the leash to jingle her Dane bling, her large metal prong walking collar. He didn’t look up, absorbed in digital conversation.
We stopped, waiting for him to pass by, but he didn’t notice us until he was one foot in front of us. But then he did notice and jumped a foot up and back when he saw the beast staring at eye level, tail whipping back and forth, excited to greet a new friend. He was terrified, nervous, and shouted, “Whoa, I didn’t see you!”
It’s hard not to notice that 115 lb. of dog from 50 feet away. Whatever was on my phone would have to be amazingly absorbing to isolate me from every other reality surrounding me.
When he jumped, I couldn’t help laughing out loud. Sometimes we really worry about who’s watching us and what they think about us. Guess what? They aren’t watching you, they’re not thinking about you, and they don’t even know you’re there.
“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4)
Mindfulness. It’s a buzzword. It’s a noble goal in a world where everyone is competing for my attention. With phones in our hands we’re distracted from the people or the traffic around us. We walk into a store and buy a cart full of end-cap items, forgetting the one thing we went there for. With minds full of noise, we have to ask the person across from us, “What did you say?” Ten pages later, we don’t remember what we just read. Somehow you got distracted, performed an assortment of mindless tasks, and didn’t get anything from your to-do list done.
It takes a lot of effort to be mindful. I have to deliberated turn off everything to concentrate on one thing. I have to do one task at a time rather than trying to juggle several. I have to make a list and stick to it. I have to recognize what is important rather than what appears to be urgent.
The bible ascribes many attributes to God, but here the psalmist marvels at the mindfulness of God. In a creation so vast that I feel insignificant, he’s mindful of me, he notices me, he cares about me, and he grants me with significance.
Mindfulness begins with God. What do you notice about his creation? What do your senses tell you about your Creator? You can learn much about him from creation (Romans 1:20). What’s going on with your body? Every breath, every heartbeat points us to the God who gives us life and breath and all things.
What about all those people around you? They aren’t paying attention are they? Blocking the store aisles, drifting into your lane, not moving when the light turns green.
Don’t be that guy or gal. Decide in advance to pay attention. To notice. It’s an art. It’s a discipline. And it’s part of being created in God’s image. You can be mindful and notice.
It was too late to change my mind. I was already on the interstate exit ramp. But it was the wrong exit. I wasn’t going to a grandson’s baseball or soccer game. I was on the way to church, two more exits down the road.
It wasn’t a huge deal. I had plenty of time. And my alternate route only took five extra minutes. But why did my autopilot malfunction? I’ve been to these two places so many times I don’t even think about it. I just go. Maybe it was because we had just been to two games in the past week. Maybe I got distracted by conversation with my wife and the two boys in the van with us. Who knows?
I’m usually paying attention to where I’m going. I’m aware of my surroundings and what’s going around me. I hear the weather on the radio, catch the silly chattering of grandkids in the back, and pay attention to every little noise the van makes. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten so absorbed in work or a project that I lost track of time.
My detour reminded me of a story from some friends in Iowa. They were on their way to some city west of Des Moines on I-80. They chatted about all kinds of things, making the drive seem short. Then they noticed a sign “Omaha – 10 miles.” I know, it doesn’t seem possible, but they drove about one hundred miles too far that day. That’s losing track of time!
How many things do I do each day without thinking about them? I can brush my teeth, tie my shoes, and sign my name without a thought. I can ride a bike, catch a ball, play guitar chords, and eat a donut without engaging my mind. It’s fascinating that my body just knows what to do.
So I remind myself to pay attention. I don’t to be that guy in the middle of the grocery store aisle, oblivious to other shoppers. Or the person ahead of you at the intersection, unaware that the light has turned green. (Although I confess that I have been that guy.) Or the worshiper who says the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostles Creed while thinking about what you want to eat for lunch. (Been there; done that.)
The line at Wawa was short as I waited to pay for my coffee. I had just filled the truck with gas and needed some afternoon caffeine. In line ahead of me was a pregnant woman who looked like she had just stepped out of a hospital operating room. She wore light blue scrubs, a face mask, and head covering along with a hospital ID clipped onto a pocket.
I watched with interest as she placed a sub and a large coffee on the counter and told the cashier what kind of cigarettes she wanted. As she paid the cashier asked, “Are you a nurse?” She replied, “No, I’m a doctor.”
I couldn’t help but notice the apparent contradictions. Health care and smoking. Pregnancy and caffeine.
It’s easy to be judgmental. I don’t know the whole story. It could have been a large decaf. Those cigarettes could have been for someone else. My mom smoked and drank lots of coffee. So did my childhood doctor and his office nurse.
I wonder what contradictions people notice when they see me.
Did anyone notice how I could preach, “Love your neighbor” when I couldn’t stand the person living across the street from me? Did I ever mention how happy I was when I saw a For Sale sign in his front yard?
No one got to see the times my eyes rolled back as I listened to endless rants from members on the phone who were upset about anything and everything. Yes, there were days when I hoped some of the sheep would wander off and get lost.
I wonder how it looked when I didn’t get my afternoon caffeine and I couldn’t keep my eyes open during an afternoon visit. That sure makes people feel important. I suppose that was simply payback for those times when I put people to sleep on a Sunday morning.
What contradictions do people notice when they watch or listen to you?
I really enjoyed Thomas Perry’s 2019 mystery novel The Burglar. In a nutshell, it’s about a twenty-four year old woman who steals for a living. When she breaks into a house and discovers the scene of a murder, she finds herself involved in a much bigger crime. Though fiction, I learned much about what to notice as I am walking around my neighborhood.
No one will notice you if blend in. The protagonist, Elle, made sure she looked like someone who lived in the neighborhood she was casing. If it was an upscale area, she made sure she wore nicer workout clothes. Even if the residents didn’t know her, they wouldn’t really worry about her presence as she went for a morning run.
What makes someone in my neighborhood stand out? If I see someone walking around wearing a suit, a dress, or a company polo shirt, they are going door-to-door. I take notice of a car driving slowly by, pausing in front of houses or undeveloped lots. But anyone in shorts and a t-shirt, walking a dog, blends right in.
There are signs that no one is home. Two or three newspapers in the driveway are a giveaway that someone is away. A few cards in the front door left by the door-to-door salespeople announce the same. Lights in the house on at unusual times during the day could be a sign of extended travel. No trash can on the curb on collection day? Someone is on a trip. A family loads suitcases into the back of their car? That house will be unoccupied for a while.
Some houses are easy to get into. As Elle ran through neighborhoods, she noticed who had security cameras or door and window alarms. She noticed windows that were not entirely closed. Some windows were behind bushes or in fenced-in yards. Second story windows were often not alarmed or closed. Louvered windows were not hard to enter. A home with a large dog might have a large dog door that she could squeeze through.
In the story, she’s good at picking locks. But it’s always better to be out of sight if that’s how you’ll enter a home.
She knew what was worth taking. Once inside a house, she passed over art, TVs, computers, and other items that were harder to sell. Cash was the best thing to take and she knew exactly where most people kept cash. Jewelry was OK, but it better be really valuable because you would only get pennies on the dollar for its worth. Guns might be worth something, but since they are usually registered, they are hard to sell.
I have no aspirations of breaking, entering, and taking anything that’s not mine. I’m just fascinated by what you can learn simply by watching. And I am much more aware of who is watching me.
Waite for it... 