Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Wire In The Way

There’s a telephone wire that borders the back of my property, just beyond the property line. It’s clearly visible from the deck, and from many of the windows.

A telephone pole is situated behind some trees, so it is not visible. There is beautiful lush forest continuing beyond the telephone line, displaying a variety of trees. Oak, Cedar, Madrone, Douglas Fir, and Pine. The mountains, ridges, and canyons, stretch for miles into the distance, encompassing many different elevations of topography, and lush blankets of growth. The colors are stunning, and the view is spectacular. The first snow of the year has recently settled upon the highest, and most distant, peak. It will probably be gone in a couple of days if we don’t get another storm passing through.

The telephone wire changes its appearance, and its prominence, depending on the light, and the time of day. Sometimes it is reflective of the light, and sometimes it disappears altogether.

When the wire is visible I often find myself looking at it, rather at the forested mountains beyond it. Sometimes I look out from my deck and the wire truly is the only thing I can see. I become fixated on it, if you will, and I cannot see anything else. There is all of this beauty above, below, around, and beyond the wire, and yet my eyes see nothing but the wire. There must be a name for that. Tunnel vision, near sightedness, myopia, or something like that.

Then, as I mentioned, there are times when I cannot even see the wire at all. This very moment is one of those times. I cannot tell that the wire is even there. The light disguises it as if it were sky. All I see is the beauty.

There was an astonishing rainbow the other day, brilliant as the depth and breadth of a child’s imagination. It bent across the sky like the stroke of a brush, or a Technicolor embrace by the arms of God. A Waterfall of color tumbling to the ground, in front of me, but beyond the wire.

I could not see the telephone wire, only the rainbow.

People are enhanced when we see their beauty,
rather than their faults.

Don’t let the wire get in your way.