A Radical Act of Self Love

There’s a small white bump on the inner edge of my right earlobe.

I never noticed it before Thursday because, well…I’d never looked at my earlobe until Thursday.

That’s when I took a close-up photograph of my ears and drew them in my sketchbook. I drew them slowly and carefully in black ink, trying to record every bump and undulation.

Trying not to draw some ears, but my ears.

On Friday I drew my nose. And on Saturday my mouth.

I’m practicing noticing — and to notice what I notice.

In Danny Gregory’s words, to “reorient my gaze”:

“…seeing the beauty and value of all we have, seeing and recording and acknowledging the evidence of our senses, celebrating the everyday…”

My own bag of meat and bones seems like as good a place to start as any.

“I don’t have anything interesting to say”

Noticing is really just the awareness of the sights, sounds, touches and tastes that pique our curiosity…