Same Hood, Different Eyes

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."

~ Robertson Davies

Same Hood, Different Eyes

After graduating from college back in the early 80s, I joined a couple of my high school friends to share a house in the hip Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle. We called our house The Canfield Country Club, after the street name and the multiple gatherings that occurred in our little slice of Heaven on any given weekend.

My memories of those days at the lake overflow with scene after scene of our twenty-something escapades, the kind that can only be described as full abandon. Without a seeming care in the world, we spent our days at jobs that let us come home to backyard parties, nightclubs, and long stretches of time in and around the lake. We didn't want to miss a moment of life.

It was beautiful, every part of it. It was a happy time.

So when the chance for me to spend time back in that neighborhood came up this summer, I jumped at it. This time, over 40 years later, as I walked through the streets, I no longer saw the beauty of it all. Everything seemed to have faded, and the houses and yards looked worn and shabby.

One warm evening, as I sat on the outdoor patio of a little wine shop and sipped on a glass of bubbly, I looked around. I watched people, dozens and dozens of them, out and about. All ages, all shapes and sizes, and everyone seemed so happy. When I talked to any of them, they said how much they loved it here.

Perhaps, I thought, I'm the one missing the beauty in all this. Then I remembered, even when I lived here, the houses were old and shabby. But back then, I wasn't looking at the shabbiness. I was looking at the fun I was having.

It reminded me of how many of us go into relationships seeing the parts we want to see. At first, we fall in love with the parts of a person that are most attractive, and with how being around them makes us feel. But what we forget is that, like neighborhoods that have been around a while, we age, we slow down, our hair changes or falls out completely, and none of us look as fresh and new as we once did.

The moment I sat sipping on the bubbles is where I decided to look at things differently. I've changed too, in fact, quite a bit since those frivolous days at Green Lake all those years ago. When I look in the mirror today, I see a woman who has been through more than six decades of life, raising children, marriages, divorces, loss of loved ones, reinvention. The wear and tear is apparent from the outside.

But inside, I don't really feel any different than that carefree twenty-something who still throws her head back when something is genuinely funny, who still doesn't want to miss a moment of life.

Maybe that's the whole trick, in a neighborhood, in a marriage, or in the mirror: not pretending the shabbiness isn't there, but remembering to look for the fun still happening inside of it.

Love and Light,

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