Origin Story
In the fall of 2006, I had been living in Monterey, California for going on two years. Every morning, I would ride my bike to the small advertising agency where I worked. To get there, I’d zoom down a big hill right through John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and hop on the pedestrian trail. I’d race past cute little pastel-colored seaside shops, art galleries filled with the works of masters, grand hotels with sculpted trees and brick-lined plazas, ornate fountains at their centers. Ahead of me the sun would rise picturesquely over the bay, chilly water sparkling and brilliant. Sea lions would be barking from beneath the piers of Fisherman’s Wharf, where the creamy smell of fresh chowder was just beginning to waft enticingly from its myriad restaurants. Seagulls would be soaring over the multi-colored sails of anchored boats, crying incessantly. Really, it was a sort of paradise…
…and I barely noticed any of it, my head crowded with thoughts of the mundane design-project-of-the-day at work.
This was my daily auto-pilot routine for more than a year, until one day I was blessed with a moment of lucidity. Maybe the sun reflected off the water just right, maybe a seagull flew dangerously close by and startled me. I don’t know what snapped me out of it, but I remember thinking to myself, Remember this—don’t let it slip away.
After that day, I vowed to be present, to soak in all I could… because I knew it wouldn’t last. This was a city where well-to-do people came to retire, or upper-middle-class families came to vacation – NOT a place where a young person could settle down and just live life.
Years later, that small resolution – to observe and remember – would culminate in a project I call #noticebeauty. Every day for one year, starting on January 11th, 2010, I would not only notice the beauty around me, but record it. I would not simply observe—I would shout it to out loud, and encourage everyone to shout back. There, a cloud that looks like a turtle! Look, a feather caught in a spider web, blowing in the wind! Listen, music from a violin duet drifts into this open window from the street below! Ah, the rustic smell of a fire in someone’s fireplace. On, and on, and on, and on, and…
There is so much beauty all around us, whether one lives by the ocean or on the prairie. At times the world boxes your ears for attention. At others, it tugs bashfully at your pant leg. Always, though, the world is begging us to see, hear, smell, taste, feel… to notice.
I, for one, intend to give my full attention.
