Walking from one building to another at 3:14

To prove that I haven't entirely given up on observing the moment at 3:14: last Thursday, I was walking back from a meeting with my students to my new office.  Here's a photo.

Looking up

The weather is hot enough that I often choose my walking route based on trees. This is the view looking up from the middle of that particular walk, looking into the canopy of some sycamore trees. Likewise, the bark of the Sycamore tree never fails to captivate me.



I have a friend and colleague who is a birdwatcher; about 20 years ago, I decided that instead, I would be a tree watcher. It's much easier to come back to the same tree an hour or even several days later to try to identify it. I got a little field guide book that I carried around with me regularly so that I could get to know the names of the trees that I passed. It was a lovely way to turn the ordinary into the surprising – an example of we don't know what it is that we don't know.





Billy Collins describes this wonder of discovery in a poem called  What I learned today.  Here's a snippet:

Of course I know what flannel is,

but that French flannel is napped only on one side

Is new to me and a reminder that

no matter what the size the aquarium of one's learning,

Another colored pebble can always be dropped in.