Pepper Trail | Essays | The Art of Observation

THE ART OF OBSERVATION

It is a foggy winter day at the foot of Lower Table Rock. Every tiny Ceanothus leaf, every oak twig, every grass stem is clothed in a filigree of frost. I am standing as motionless as everything else, frozen by the fractal intricacy of the world. Only my clouded breath moves, curling slowly through my beard. Suddenly a nuthatch flies out of the fog, pitches into a nearby oak and begins inspecting the bark for hidden insects. A common bird, a species I have seen many hundreds of times. I lift my binoculars, and the bird comes into sharp focus. Like all of its kind, this one has a stocky self-confidence as it hitches its way around the trunk, hanging head-first from its big, sharp-clawed feet. Suddenly I notice with a shock that this particular nuthatch has only one eye; the other is a puckered scar. With that one detail, what a wave of feeling!

I am pulled out of my own reality and into the bird’s: the shock of pain as the eye is stabbed on a sharp twig, the starving days that followed, the learning how to forage all over again, the lifelong fear of predators coming out of the darkness, and the resolute endurance and acceptance that lies at the heart of wild creatures.

With a laconic enk! the nuthatch declares its inspection of this oak complete, and flies off into the fog, never to be seen by me again. That moment of connection, spanning perhaps 15 seconds, will stay with me forever.

If I could become the master of any art, I would choose the art of observation. This art creates no masterpieces, but it perceives them. It is little recognized, seldom cultivated, and almost never taught. At least not here and not now. But among all our ancestors, what a prerequisite art it was! Childhood then was an apprenticeship in the crafts of survival, and the astonishingly observant eyes of children were trained to detect the subtle and shifting signs of nature, signs that could signify life and death. To read today of the routine feats of survival of Australian aborigines or of Alaskan Inuits is to be dumbfounded by the specificity with which they saw their world. We can scarcely conceive of the artistry of their observation.

I know that I will never attain such mastery. But I also know that I am blessed with a “good eye,” and I cultivate it as I can, to notice the beauty of this world, which is infinite.

		THE ART OF OBSERVATION It is a foggy winter day at the foot of Lower Table Rock. Every tiny Ceanothus leaf, every oak twig, every grass stem is clothed in a filigree of frost. I am standing as motionless as everything else, frozen by the fractal intricacy of the world. Only my clouded breath moves, curling slowly through my beard. Suddenly a nuthatch flies out of the fog, pitches into a nearby oak and begins inspecting the bark for hidden insects. A common bird, a species I have seen many hundreds of times. I lift my binoculars, and the bird comes into sharp focus. Like all of its kind, this one has a stocky self-confidence as it hitches its way around the trunk, hanging head-first from its big, sharp-clawed feet. Suddenly I notice with a shock that this particular nuthatch has only one eye; the other is a puckered scar. With that one detail, what a wave of feeling! I am pulled out of my own reality and into the bird’s: the shock of pain as the eye is stabbed on a sharp twig, the starving days that followed, the learning how to forage all over again, the lifelong fear of predators coming out of the darkness, and the resolute endurance and acceptance that lies at the heart of wild creatures. With a laconic enk! the nuthatch declares its inspection of this oak complete, and flies off into the fog, never to be seen by me again. That moment of connection, spanning perhaps 15 seconds, will stay with me forever. If I could become the master of any art, I would choose the art of observation. This art creates no masterpieces, but it perceives them. It is little recognized, seldom cultivated, and almost never taught. At least not here and not now. But among all our ancestors, what a prerequisite art it was! Childhood then was an apprenticeship in the crafts of survival, and the astonishingly observant eyes of children were trained to detect the subtle and shifting signs of nature, signs that could signify life and death. To read today of the routine feats of survival of Australian aborigines or of Alaskan Inuits is to be dumbfounded by the specificity with which they saw their world. We can scarcely conceive of the artistry of their observation. I know that I will never attain such mastery. But I also know that I am blessed with a “good eye,” and I cultivate it as I can, to notice the beauty of this world, which is infinite.