On Noticing A Blue Crayon in Distress

So, when I said "seven days of haikus", I meant seven business days. You didn't expect me to work weekends, did you? Okay, that's a total lie. The fact is, I just got really busy (read: lazy) and didn't get around to doing a post Saturday or Sunday. But I'm here now so don't fret. You can stop filling up my mail box with hate mail and demands for more haikus. Okay, that's a total lie, too. Despite the dread with which I opened my email this morning, anticipating hundreds, if not thousands, of angry letters, there was nothing. Just digital crickets chirping where I thought the haiku fanatics of the world wide web would have formed a digital posse to chase me off of the internet with digital pitchforks and torches for not living up to my haiku promises. Huh? Weird. Nevertheless, you will have your much anticipated final two days.

As mentioned in an earlier post, traditional haikus usually portray scenes from everyday life. Many of the best haikus will take an image that we've all seen a hundred times and show it to us in a unique and enlightening way that makes us see it again as if for the first time. Or they will take something that's been right in front of us all along, but we never took the time to notice. This isn't just limited to haikus, of course. Much of the best writing and art shares this same quality. Prolific painter of flowers, Georgia O'Keeffe said, "Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time." Like O'Keeffe's flower, these small haikus take time. To write them and to read and understand them. 

Georgia O'Keeffe, Light Iris, 1924

My haikus for today are about taking time to notice the small things. One simple trick for helping us to notice what we might otherwise miss is to close our eyes. When we close our eyes, we wake up the other senses and bring ourselves into the moment. Sometimes we even wake senses we didn't expect:

I close my eyes to 

Hear the seagull’s cry and feel

The cold metal bench.

Another trick I use to force myself to slow down and notice things I otherwise wouldn't is to go barefoot. First of all, you need to understand that I hate going barefoot. I always have. But when you're barefoot, you have to slow down or you might hurt yourself. More importantly, you notice things you otherwise wouldn't: the texture of the pavement, the change in temperature of the carpet where the sun shines through a window, the dew still lingering in the grass as you pass into the shadow of a tree, etc... It's a simple trick to force you into the moment and heighten your senses. I think it works so well for me because I dislike it so much. It takes me out of my comfort zone which naturally forces me to pay closer attention. While teaching my Creative Writing class one day, I used this trick and made a disturbing discovery:

Hundreds of tiny

Red bugs wander the sidewalk.

I never noticed.

Not until I was causing a tiny red bug apocalypse by crushing dozens of them under my bare feet, anyway! The poet William Meredith said, “The worst that can be said about a man, is that he did not pay attention.” As writers and artists, our priority is to “pay attention”. Keen observation, noticing what others don’t, is what separates us from the average person. Taking note of all the little things, even tiny disgusting red bugs, that go unnoticed by others is what gives us something worth creating. For instance, even an observation like...

A worn blue crayon

Rests among the thorns, chewed gum,

And cigarette butts.

...could be a seed for an idea. This was a simple, factual observation I made years ago on the street outside my school. As I consider it now, it means so much more. Think about it: The crayon, the iconic instrument of a child's creativity. Blue, no less, the symbolic color of purity, the color of the infinite sky where our potential can soar. And where is this holy relic of creativity? Discarded, abandoned, left to rot with chewed gum, thorns, and used up cigarette butts. Cigarette butts being the perfect symbol of the destructive habits of a grown-up. So tragic! "Where is your proverbial blue crayon? Did it fall among the thorns?" the haiku asks me now. And did you catch that? It even had a nice biblical reference. Who knew? I didn't, not when I wrote it anyway. I only had faith that if I planted a seed, maybe something would grow. 

A quick sketch in my journal of a cigarette butt and a dead bee along with some random observations and thoughts.

The writer Neil Gaimen said, “You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.”

On one occasion, I was sitting in my Language Arts class watching all the students waste the time I'd given them to work on an assignment. This happens far more often than I care to admit. Maybe I was bored or daydreaming, as Neil Gaimen said. More likely I was frustrated and a bit mad. Either way, it gave me an idea for a haiku and I was alert enough to notice:

Florescent lights hum.

Students ruffle paper and

Cough. Learning drifts off.

If we look close enough, if we take the time to really observe our world, to pay attention, to notice, we will discover it is filled with intriguing ideas for potential poems, stories, art, and other creative endeavors. As we strive to notice these miniature miracles all around us, maybe, just maybe, we can become a little like what the poet William Blake described:

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

...and then use our creativity to share what we discover with others.