The Observationist

Across the street from my office is a large open field. I think they plant soybeans or something there, I'm not sure. For the past few months, though, it's been home to a few seemingly content groundhogs, whose presence has as little bearing on our work as ours has on theirs. I've watched them venture across this plot, popping up out of the various holes they've cleared for themselves. I've watched the little groundhog babies try to follow an adult out across the hill, and watched that adult scurry off as fast as possible to get out of their sight, until their nervousness gets the best of them and they duck back down below the earth.

Out walking in the woods that borders this field, I've twice seen a flock of about 20 wild turkeys. Once I nearly snuck up on them (which, if you don't know, is very hard to do), and saw one of the males displaying his feathers as he strutted up slowly behind the rest of the females. He seemed unperturbed...or unaware...of my presence.

There are redtailed hawks, black vultures, ravens, kestrels, mockingbirds, robins, and blue jays; there are grey squirrels, red squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, more groundhogs...and cows, in the fields further down. There are oak trees, elms, cedars, maples, birch, and others I probably can't identify. There are countless insects and wildflowers.

If I sat on a city street for a few hours, alone, I would be content to take in the interactions of those around me. If I sat on the same street many days or weeks in a row, I'm sure I'd see the same people, and similar interactions, and maybe even start to know some of them...without actually speaking to them. People's patterns aren't that different from animals, and no more difficult to observe. It just takes patience, and maybe some ability to disconnect from yourself.

When I talk about getting to know people better, it's this kind of observation that I use. Taking in all the nature around me over an hour lunch break, once or twice a week for the past few months, has made me understand this little ecosystem that we exist next to for forty hours a week. Taking in all the people around me, every word, action, inaction, gesture, look, conversation, detail or nuance...it's the same skill, the same way of taking in my surroundings. No one sat me down and said, this is what this field is like, this is where the predators are, this is where that path leads, this is the fence between this man's land and that...but without any direction, it didn't take long to figure it out for myself. In the same way, no one will sit me down and say this is how I am, this is how I act, this is how I react to things, my likes, dislikes, the things that make me happy or the things that make me angry. You might get that from close friends, but you certainly won't get that from people you don't know well, or strangers. But it's there, and it's easy to see. You just have to figure out how to put it all together. You just have to know how to look.