Benched Week 94: how can this be?

 Every January, I start the year giving myself a pep talk. In one sentence. Call it a personal slogan – a simply-put idea to focus on throughout the coming months. This year, I’m charging myself to wonder about wonder.

I recently attended a performance where a magician brought a  young girl on stage and had her throw invisible coins into a metal bucket.  He look of utter astonishment with the first clink of a coin was priceless.  (I drew this from a photo I took a bit later, when he was making coins drop from her elbow.)

This old-time photo from the web captures the expression.

 

Pondering what constitutes wonder, I’ve decided that a key question drives it: “How can this be?” Incredulity is necessary for our reaction. But there’s also an essential abundance required for the cause: something is good over and above the norm. When good happens, we are grateful. When something extraordinarily great happens, we wonder.

Which brings me to my bench. I was on the sidewalk in Manhattan on Tuesday night, having finished my all-day capture of a visioning session. Dreading the drive home in rush hour traffic, I was fully focused on the problem – a “grim-faced and fell” road warrior (as Tolkien might have described). Striding my way through the crowds.

Then I passed the New York Public Library with its majestic lions. As I stopped to take a photo of one, realization crept into my mind like moonlight under a pulled shade: Dude, you are in New York City! (Apparently, Realization speaks like a frat buddy.) Here I was, not in the days of desperate hawking of my portfolio thirty years ago, but by invitation of a global company. This was no mild career improvement. This was an incredible, unexpected turn-around.

I had to find a bench, just to sit and wonder for a while.

Abundance in some forms is easy to spot. There is the abundance in beauty – seen easily in nature. Like the orchid I captured recently at the U.S. Botanic Gardens.

Or seen in man-made beauty, like a Lord & Taylor’s display. (Though, note to L&T: brighter isn’t always better.)

It’s harder to recognize abundance in situations. The everyday graces. The surprising blessings. Why are these harder to see? Our sense of entitlement blinds us. If we want to be wide-eyed with wonder about a coin in a bucket, we can’t expect it to be there. The first step toward amazement is to stop looking at the extraordinary as mundane. Stop seeing lions just as overgrown cats.

Sometimes that will require to cease our purposeful striding. Find a bench to sit on.

And look up in contented disbelief.