The Choice of Noticing

There’s a certain bravery in slowing down and being a better noticer. Not the kind that earns applause or summit photos, but the quiet courage of leaping, eyes open, into the life you already have.

This is a story about choosing to notice. It's about finding the extraordinary nestled inside the familiar. Novelty not as an escape, but as a deep encounter with the ground beneath your feet, the wind on your cheek, and the world as it already is.

When we're young, life is rich in firsts. A hundred astonishments a day and "six impossible things before breakfast." But with time and work and family and responsibilities, the world can narrow. We slip into the comfort of patterns and precious moments that once flowed like a wide river, becomes a thinning creek. The calendar flips forward like telephone poles ticking by on a cross country road trip. Our life becomes a blur.

So, I'm asking you now to hike with me into the otherness of the mountain and slow the clocks down. Together, we will experience the effects of "soft fascination," which comes to us, or we to it, most readily in nature.

It’s morning in Olympic Valley, California. The sun is lifting itself over the mountains, dissolving frost and warming Tram Face, Olympic Valley's one thousand foot tall centerpiece. Light splits into the Valley slowly covering the iconic fence, trees, and meadow with alpenglow.

As we start our climb up Shirley Canyon Trail, all I ask is two things: One, that you choose to notice things you may have taken for granted; and two, you actively look for things that astonish.

The air is cool, perfumed by the earthy aroma of damp soil and the sharp, sweet smell of pine. A creek rushes beside us, a melody of comfort. The wind brushes past, creating a tremor through the aspens. Even the geese seem to be flying with the rhythm of this musical ensemble. Every sound seems tuned to a single, unseen orchestra. Somewhere, a conductor with a thousand invisible arms is controlling all the elements.

And in this flash mob of forest music, Nature mirrors back the stories we tell ourselves. Some days, she is the kind mother... nourishing, forgiving, merciful. Other days, she watches with a more sinister eye, reminding us how small we are. Her moods shift just as our own: tender, watchful and pleasant one minute... and fierce, dominant and merciless the next.

High on the ridge, in the rocky outcrops, are several Juniper trees. They rise over the Valley as a congregation of twisted sentinels, holding fast against years of the harshest wind and weather imaginable. Today we put our hands on their fleshy bark and pay homage to their endurance, resilience and quiet strength. They’re not simply trees, but monuments of survival. Juniper trees ask no mercy of the mountain. They don't bargain with the relentless cold winter winds and arctic blasts or arid summers. They simply live. That's their rebellion. Juniper trees are great teachers if we choose to learn from them.

As we climb higher, the boundary between the inner and outer world thins. There's no old sage waiting along the way or at the summit, no carved commandments hidden in the stone. The wisdom is in the hiking and the active noticing itself.

In The Log from the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck argued that the immense complexity of a tide pool mirrors the larger universe, suggesting that "all things are one thing and that one thing is all things". He advised observing the world from the tide pool to the stars and back again to grasp this profound connection, noting that by observing the small, natural systems, we can gain insight into the vastness of the universe, and vice versa. 

We can gain these same connections and insights from anywhere in the world, especially on a hike in the mountains of Olympic Valley - if we choose to notice.

To live audaciously isn’t to chase higher peaks or bigger trees, but to see the same peaks and the same trees with fresh new eyes. To turn the mundane luminous by paying more attention. By choosing to notice.

The real magic of novelty isn’t found in faraway adventures, but in the rediscovery of what’s already here. The burst of a sunrise. The scent of sun-warmed pine. The Juniper’s gnarly grace against the sky. The sound of trembling aspens in the wind.

When we return to our daily lives, perhaps we carry a fragment of this awareness with us, a reminder that even the familiar can surprise us, if we let it.

So take another walk. Anywhere. Choose to notice. Listen, look, and let the story unfold beneath your feet. Be astonished.

Until next time.

#writeout @nationalwritingproject #teachingtogether #curiositycreativitycourage

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I’m Michael Kennedy, a resident of Olympic Valley, CA (in photo above). I’m a visual storyteller and I love exploring nature and getting lost along the way. I know we live in a world that demands our attention. I just want to say thank you for your attention. If you enjoyed this post, please share with a friend. For more photos and stories visit BlueWolfGallery.com.