Note to self:

I like noticing things.

That’s enough.

I don’t need to turn what I notice into art. I don’t need to photograph it, write a haiku about it, share it, publish it, or make it mean something. I can write it in my notebook simply because I enjoyed seeing it.

The noticing is the hobby.

Sometimes I also enjoy making something from what I’ve noticed. Haiku are little word puzzles: finding the right words, the right juxtaposition, the right space. Photography is another way of playing with what caught my attention. That’s enjoyable too.

But the art comes after the noticing. It serves the encounter, not the other way around.

A note that never becomes anything is not wasted.

A photograph nobody sees is not wasted.

A poem nobody publishes is not wasted.

An experience nobody knows I had is not wasted.

I don’t have to build an interesting life for an audience. I don’t have to keep up with everyone else’s experiences, achievements, publications, travels, prizes, or ambitions.

I have one life to inhabit.

So wander. Look around. Be interested.

And when something catches me, I can simply say:

I just liked noticing it.

A tall man with a dark beard emerges — from somewhere — and walks across the parking lot towards the coffee shop. He wears all green, but every piece — his pants, his t-shirt, his bucket hat — all a different shade. He is covered in dirt, as if he had been working outside all day. On the middle finger of his left hand we wears a metal brace and a bandage. When he walks, he is hunched over slightly, not from an injury, although that’s possible. He seems more to hunch as a sort of apology for being tall.

*

Four teenage girls, all wearing white formal dresses, stream into Starbucks at half past ten on a Thursday morning. The last one, reading and tapping something on her phone, struggles to keep up.

*

A mini-van pulls up and parks. The door slides open and six teenage girls spill out, all wearing short shorts and bikini tops. One tugs at the bottom of her shorts as though she were trying to lengthen them. With phones in hand, they head straight for the coffee shop door in a cloud of chatter.

A short time later, a middle-aged man, wearing an AC/DC t-shirt and looking somewhat deflated, emerges from the van. He doesn’t enter the store. Instead, he stands in the parking lot with his hands in his pockets, staring off into the distance.

*

A woman crosses the parking lot towards the store. She wears all purple: a purple sweatshirt with mismatching purple shorts. She walks briskly, sneezing once into her elbow. She sneezes a second time, and a third, never breaking her stride. After her last sneeze, she glances at her sleeve, prior to entering the store.