I’ve been a noticer for as long as I can remember.

I am vitally aware of my surroundings. My senses are on the lookout for new sights, smells, sensations.

This morning I went outside to get something out of the car. As soon as I stepped out, the morning sunshine highlighted the live oak in such a way that it caught my breathe, and I stopped to appreciate it.

This happens all the time.

Flowers. Trees. Lizards. Little green frogs. The sky. The sky!

I assumed everyone was like this, but when I married, I discovered they are not.

While my children were raised by a very observant parent, and grew up m pointing out the amazing things they saw to me, my step kids didn’t say a thing.

Didn’t seem to observe a thing!

It made me sad.

I think it is both an inborn and a learned thing to be a noticer.

My children have artistic bent to them in one manifestation or another, genetically passed down through my family tree.

My husband is a genius IQ engineer. He appreciates art and beauty, but doesn’t go looking for it.

He didn’t train his children to look for it, and so they didn’t. And don’t.

Ah, but I’ll never stop taking moments each and every day to stop wonder at the spinning silkworm. The blooming hibiscus. The way the light hits the trees right before sunset. The smell of cut grass. The way it feels outside when summer releases it’s grip, and the morning is fresh.

My husband just shakes his head when I am so overcome by this worlds’s beauty that my eyes fill with tears.

I’m just grateful that I recognize it – and hope I never stop.