Love the View

I love the view _______.

 

I can fill in the blank with one of any number of places in my life right now.

 

How about the view down my street?  Or the view from my bedroom window?  Or the view from my kids’ bedroom?  Or the view from the train platform I use every day?  Or the view out the window behind my desk?

 

These views all kick the metaphorical ass of the previous views in my life.  Three months ago, the views in my life were crap.  Empty fields, brown and covered in snow.  Dead yards, yellow and covered in snow.  Asphalt and concrete, 8-lane highways and back-road blacktop, cars and trucks and mini-vans and SUVs…all covered in ice and snow.  What crappy, miserable, ugly views…

 

Or were they? 

 

Maybe any issues we have with the views in our lives have more to do with the viewer than with the view.  Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, right?  OK, so maybe I-55 to I-294 in the Chicago area will always be short on the natural beauty, and maybe the view from my hotel room in New York City last year was wretched in a way that defies conventional description.  The thing to consider, I think, is that there is something beautiful everywhere you look.  On clear days, I could see the Chicago skylines from I-55.  When I turned on to 294 and drove up the merge with 88, Chicago could be seen again in the distance.  With a little patience, the city could be clearly seen, even close, on 294, just south of the O’Hare oasis.  That was always my favorite of the three glimpses I got of the city.  Chicago is beautiful…in a way that defies conventional description.  Whether it be from a distance, while closing in on her further up 55, or from a boat on Lake Michigan, Chicago is very simply beautiful.  I moved there for a reason.  Some day, I’ll move back.

 

What makes Belfast and what I have seen of Northern Ireland so beautiful to me is that I am awake while I am here.  There’s plenty of ugly stuff here to look at; no doubt about that.  However, like those 3 views of Chicago during my old commute, I’m looking for the moments that will give me pause and take my breath away.  At times, I catch myself lamenting that the views here are temporary.  My current lease will expire.  I could move to another town.  Heck, on a gloomy day, there’s not much to see out the window behind my desk.  That acknowledgement just serves to underscore something about which we should all be aware: all of our views are temporary.  They change each day, hour by hour.  They come and they go.  So many times, they are beyond our control.  Our paths take us away from them.  None of the views are permanent.  None of them are guaranteed.  The only guarantee is that each and every one of them will be taken away from us at some point in the future.  So don’t sweat the future and focus on what you’ve got right in front of you. 

 

Anticipating loss in the future is one of the big sins of our lives and a sure sign that we are living far from the present moment.  Being in the present moment is the only way at all to appreciate the view.