Wonder Ages Well

The context changes, the wonder remains.

The context to which I am referring here is not the location, the scenery, the weather, or even the people. It is not the external context in which the wonder is experienced; it is the internal context in which it is experienced.

I remember lying on the terrace at the back of the neighbor’s house for hours one day, just looking at the bright white puffy cumulus clouds against the background of the intense blue of the summer sky in Northern Illinois. I watched as they hung there, slowly changing shape. I was entranced. Every time that memory surfaces, I feel wonder stirring, awe at what I was seeing.

Yesterday, I sat on the balcony of the Airbnb here in Tivat for a long time doing the same thing I was doing on that terrace seventy-five years ago. Feelings of wonder washed over me. I was in awe of what I was watching as parts of a cloud moved and twisted behind and in front of other parts of the cloud. The external context between the two experiences was very different, seventy-five years later, and five thousand miles away from northern Illinois.

What started me thinking about this was my last post about the elephants in the room, the concerns as I continue to travel with a backpack at eighty-two. I started thinking about things that come with me that do not take up room in my backpack, things that age well, that provide joy and satisfaction no matter where I am or how old I am. I could always experience wonder and feel it in my body and my thoughts. That has never changed. What I experienced on that terrace seventy-five years ago and on this balcony yesterday had the same impact. In this case, there were similarities in the external context, sky, and clouds. The natural world is grounding, literally and metaphorically. While wonder for me is often associated with natural settings, it can happen in a conversation, in a concert hall, in prose and poetry, watching a masterful play in a sports game, or when savoring a particularly flavorful meal.

For me, the most different context is what is inside me now. At the age of maybe seven or nine or eleven, I felt wonder with thoughts, ideas, and memories shaped by the years I had lived through up to that point. I was already seasoned in enjoying the natural world by playing at the swamp a couple of blocks away, among the weeds in the vacant lot between the houses, and learning in school about the basics of the environment. It was summer, and I had no responsibilities other than just being. I may have already read that little paperback book for young people with names and pictures of different clouds: cirrus, stratus, nimbus, and mammatus. I suspect part of the reason it is such a vivid memory is that my mind was filled with less clutter when I was so young.

With that said, yesterday’s experience had clarity. With intentionality, I focused on what I was looking at, allowing it to fill my attention. Whatever else was happening in the landscape of my thoughts and feelings drifted away from my awareness. It was all about sky and clouds and swallows flying around, and the water in the bay reflecting sparkles of light. Whether consciously or subconsciously, the context of that experience included bits and pieces of what I had experienced on that terrace as a child. I recall images of clouds and sky when driving through the Flint Hills in Kansas and from Roman Nose State Park in the Oklahoma Prairie when I was walking the landscape there. I remember the clouds I looked on from above as I hiked the high ridge on the Kepler Walk in New Zealand feeling almost as if I could step out and walk on them. I remember the clouds over the Oregon Trail Nature Park in Kansas with its silo painted with a colorful mural. As I looked down on the a field beneath from the high ridge I had just climbed, they cast moving shadows across the fields. My context in that moment included four decades of those and other such images.

Over the years, I have read articles and books and had conversations about the history and structure of the Universe, especially at the quantum level. That we are made of matter forged in the heat of exploding stars and that the odds against our existence as sentient beings are astronomical add to the wonder. Whether one’s view of the Universe has a spiritual component or not, our existence is a miracle. That awareness is part of the context of the wonder I experience at this age.

Aging adds context to experiences of wonder. It doesn’t mean that one experience has more value than any other or anyone else’s understanding of it. It is not a competition. It simply means that each experience is unique. To find wonder, there is no need to be in distant or exotic places. The wonder isn’t in the external, the setting, it lies in us.

I remember during the fifteen years I worked a seven-minute drive from our house in Kansas City, Missouri, to the church in Prairie Village, Kansas. I drove on Gregory Boulevard, 71st street on the Kansas side. It is a residential area with very nice, older homes that are well cared for. The street is lined with large oak trees on both sides. It was beautiful every time I drove it, almost always two round trips a day. I never got tired of it. I was always aware of being in beauty.

No matter how often I look out at the scene across from me, the rooftops and the bay and the hills across it, the mountains to the side of me, the view is different. It is a moment in my life with a specific context. The water looks the way it is in that moment, when I step out on the balcony the breeze is blowing or not in that moment, the sun is or is not shining on those mountains in that moment in a way that will be, if only a bit, different from the last time I saw it and the next time I will see it. That moment will never happen again. Not only will that external context be unique, but my internal context will be unique. That is what is exciting about being alive. Every moment is unique. It would be impossible to be aware of that, to be mindful of every moment of every day consciously, but to take time to notice every once in a while, or to spend time regularly in whatever mindfulness exercise works for you, can keep the ability to be in the moment close at hand. Whenever I think of being fully present, it feels like a burden is lifted from my shoulders, if only for that moment. Our lives are full of so much, with messages bombarding us, carrying too much to think about. It's just a bit of wonder, but it offers some relief.

As I travel, my backpack can only hold so much. The capacity to experience Wonder takes up no space and adds nothing to the load. It is always immediately accessible, even when no Internet access is available. Wonder ages very well. Each year adds layers of context with which to enjoy it.

The Destination is Now,

Peter