How to Keep the Magic in Everyday Life

When my husband and I go for a weekend trip to the Sonoma coast in Northern California, I'm always amazed by how fast a lot of people are driving on Highway 1.  Highway 1 is not meant to be a fast drive.  It's narrow, it's hilly, it winds, and the views are consistently spectacular.  It's a road to savor – not necessarily puttering, but certainly not racing, showing off your car's cornering and suspension or your own stunt driving skills.

But my opinion may be in the minority.

How do you ignore such rare beauty in favor of covering the miles as fast as possible?  Maybe these are residents of the area – so used to the marvelous vistas they no longer pay attention.  It doesn't seem possible to me.  If I lived there, I'd want to drink in that loveliness every day.  I wouldn't want to lose the magic.

Noticing, and not noticing

But don't we all get used to what we see every day?  Think about the last time you drove to work or the supermarket.  Did you really see what you were passing, or did you just arrive at your destination with no real memory of the journey?  Did you notice that house down the street where they've painted the front door red, or the one with the beautiful rose bushes, or the one that just went up for sale?

Part of the problem is that we're driving.  We're in a vehicle that can not only go much faster than we can walk, but it's loud, and it's equipped with a radio and a phone – more loud things to demand our attention.  It's climate-controlled, so we don't have to feel the heat or the frost.  Maybe it has tinted windows, so we can't see colors the way they really are.

This isn't the way our parents or grandparents lived.  They were intimately acquainted with their neighborhood, town, and surrounding areas because they walked or maybe rode a bike.  They knew what the farmers were growing, where there were wild blackberry bushes and when the fruit would be ripe, and where they could go for crawdads or trout.  They knew that Mrs. So-and-So did her laundry on Tuesdays, because they'd always see the sheets hanging on the line.  They knew which dogs were friendly and which were always on guard.

Even I grew up knowing my neighbors' pets and trees, Mrs. O'Neil's lilacs that overhung our side fence, the house around the corner with the teenage son who rode a motorcycle, and who was most generous with Halloween treats.  (Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler!)  I knew who would take my mom's extra garden tomatoes, and who would bring her bags of zucchini.  I knew that if it was overcast on a summer morning, it would probably be sunny before noon.  (I love that Bay Area weather.)

What I'm remembering is a mental map filled with personalities, an almanac of seasonal events and changes, a place I can still picture and describe.

Today, what I notice most often is a new fast food outlet or big box store being built, or a company in the older part of town going out of business.  I notice signs displaying the price of gas, especially when it's going up.  Yes, I notice rain or sun, fog or glare – road conditions.  Driving conditions.

Because I'm in my car.

The hows and whys of observation

My husband Jon likes birds.  He's not a birder in the sense that he keeps a Life List and goes on Audubon Society trips.  He just likes birds, and notices them.  Over the years, he's learned a lot about the birds that live in and migrate through our area, and it always surprises me how much he knows and observes.

He'll see a bird in flight – one I can barely make out – and identify it because of the way it's holding its head or its wings, or by its size and the shape of its beak.  He'll hear a bird as we walk across the school field behind his classroom, and tell me its name and where it's probably nesting and what it wants to eat.

If you're a birder, none of this will surprise or amaze you.

When I notice a bird and watch it for a while, I'll see that it's hopping around, perhaps looking for food.  I'll notice its color and size.  But when it flies away, I'm done.  I don't pay any more attention.  I think Jon has become fascinated by birds because he watches them long enough to see how they're responding to their environment.  To him, they're not just entities that come and go for him to notice or not as he pleases.  They're connected to everything around them, and they're observing too – minutely, in detail, with every sense they possess – because if they don't, they won't survive.

The myth we believe

Obviously, we've decided there are a lot of things we can ignore on our planet and still survive.  We pay attention to that truck barreling along beside us on the highway, but there are plenty of other things we ignore.

The things we tend to ignore encompass most of our natural environment, unless:

• it's in our backyard or otherwise right in front of us and we feel like paying attention because it's pretty, entertaining, or relaxing to do so
• it's something epic that we want to be able to say we've conquered or experienced, such as Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon
• it's something we want to harvest, extract, or in some way use up for our own enrichment

Earlier civilizations were awed by Nature, and worshipped the sun, moon, oak trees, and more as gods and goddesses.  The ocean, for example, was not just a source of Arctic cod or petroleum, nor its coastlines only valuable for trading ports or resort developments, but was the realm of various sea gods.

I'm a Christian, and I'm not suggesting we should return to worshipping some mythological deities.  But when we only value the earth for what it can produce for us, rather than as a creation full of beauty and majesty, we're just as misguided.  When we mess with a delicately balanced web of life because we can't see how amazing it is, we're incredibly arrogant.  When we waste what is valuable and irreplaceable so we can have fast fashion, fast cars, and cheap consumer goods, I think we're just dumb.

What we're missing

We're lacking awe, and we need it.  We need to walk into the redwood forest and stare up at the tallest and oldest of living things.  We need to confront something beyond ourselves so we can

• be fully present and aware
• be filled with curiosity
• overcome materialism
• become less selfish
• feel a kinship with the rest of creation
• value the everyday beauties around us

In fact, we need to dawdle along Highway 1 (or wherever we are) instead of racing past all of the beauty – even if we live there, even if we think we've seen it all before.

In this season, as we begin to look forward to and plan for the holidays, let's remember to slow down our to-do lists, choosing only activities that truly have meaning for us, and think about how to celebrate with less shopping and more memorable experiences.  Don't lose the magic by hurrying, cramming, and grabbing all you can.  Instead:

• identify the highest-quality experiences
• pay attention to the details
• appreciate each nuance
• get the most from the least
• feel awe and give thanks

Are you tired of canned music, packed parking lots, relentless ads, and ridiculous wish lists?  Have you had it with social media competition, crazy schedules, and way too many holiday cookies?

You're not a Grinch, but you want a holiday with less greed, less clutter, less stress, and more love, more meaning, and more peace.

Find practical inspiration for a simpler Christmas season in my book, A Minimalist Holiday.*  It's available as an e-book, in paperback, and now in a beautiful hardcover edition too.

* This blog is reader-supported, with no ads!  If you purchase through my links, I may earn a small commission.