When you see something many times you often stop seeing it at all.
And then one fine morning you see it again for the first time. This morning’s motorcycle ride to work was like that for me. I saw a lot of things I have passed most mornings for years except I was really seeing them this morning. Features like the one lane curved road with a cliff on one side and a 100-foot drop on the other jumped out at me. The fog I was passing through felt alive. Every bug seemed to zoom into clear detail as I blasted towards them. I felt like I was watching the world through someone else’s eyes this morning. It was great!
The magic didn’t really end until I hit the interstate and the first asshole zipped past me in a minivan doing over 100. It had Quebec license plates. I stopped really seeing the world around me after the Canadians went by. They were on offense and I realized it was time for me to get on defense. I went back to my normal scan short scan long scan medium rinse, lather, repeat eye patrol. The magic visions faded. I’d like to have another morning of really seeing what’s around me soon though. The countryside of North Georgia is really pretty magical if you just see it the right way. This morning, the right way of seeing it was from my motorcycle at between 30 and 40 miles per hour.