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Dear Subscriber First Name, Every day that I am home, I take a 2.5 mile walk. But I don’t just take any walk. I walk the exact same path along the same river…about 340 days a year. I have been doing this for about ten years. That’s a lot of immersion and intimacy with a particular place. One lesson I have learned through this practice is that the things in our lives that we may think of as routine or commonplace are likely just suffering the limitations of our notice and engagement. Most of us grew up having heard the adage, “familiarity breeds contempt.” What an ominous pronouncement! When I was young, believing this had me twisted up in fear of being too familiar to anyone by whom I wanted to be liked - including myself. It made me resist commitment. It fed my propensity for shapeshifting and novelty, restlessness and envy. It made me run in wide, wild circles. It made contentment and satiation elusive. Boring even. Contrast that with one of my favorite quotes at this stage in my life: “Love is a long, close scrutiny.” What an awesome pronouncement! We may fall in love with something new, but we stay in love with something we are willing to continually study closely and be amazed by. Love comes alive when we relate to the given intricacies within and around us with curiosity, interest, and awe. When we believe - and allow ourselves to experience - that nothing may be truly, exactly the same any two days in a row…it can awaken us to a far greater sense of wonder and possibility as we walk through our world.
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