Seeing
April Ambles: Reflections of a Philosophical Forager — Day 15
Annie Dillard wrote, in her iconic 1974 treatise Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.” She tells of her childhood in Pittsburgh, when she followed her curious compulsion of hiding a penny in a crack in the sidewalk, imaging that some lucky passer-by would find it and pick it up, then goes on to muse, “But — and this is the point — who gets excited by a mere penny?”
Then comes the clincher “…if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.”
Today I drove along a winding road that led me past the rugged shape of Grandfather mountain, and for the first time I saw the profile of the grandfather himself, staring off into the distance. You have to be in the right place, and your imagination has to be working in order to tune in to the possibility of a human form in the rocky outcropping. But once you’ve seen it, it is forever imbedded in your mind.
Such is the nature of the gift of seeing. We must first be receptive before the treasures are made visible. We must look before we see. Then — like Annie Dillard — we are rewarded by the incredible simplicity of an unwrapped gift. And our pockets become heavy with pennies.
For more amblings from the author, check out Child of the Woods: An Appalachian Odyssey.
