my whole year this year has been an exercise in cultivating wonder. i’ve gotten more involved in the sciences and medicine. i’ve touched and explored my first cadaver, i’ve stained microbes and looked at them under the microscope, i’ve cut open a sheep’s heart, made oxygen, learned to identify a variety of tissues, and learn more every day about what an amazing piece of work the human body is (and by extension, non-human bodies, too). it’s odd to say it here, but doing my homework really does help me engender a sense of wonder. really really thinking about how all of these things came together down through the billions of years of evolution to make all the life we have on the planet now. and to think about all the scientific discoveries we’ve made just in the past hundred years — a friend of mine just had faulty heart valve replaced with a pig valve. amazing, really, when you think about it. what will his options be when that valve weakens and needs to be replaced? (pig valves usually only last a decade or so before needing to be replaced, but don’t run the same day to day risks as the blood thinners required for the mechanical valves.)
also, i made the decision near the beginning of the year that i was ready to take some risks in the realms of the heart (this required a different sort of opening than the one mentioned above). i met mr. marsh in april (see previous post). allowing myself to trust, taking the risks of showing who i really am (from the cranky to the sappy), giving him space to be who he is without taking it personally… all this has both helped and been helped by my sense of wonder in the world.
i like to look at art, as well. not only art i really like, but art that shows how much love and energy the artist put into it. over the summer, we found ourselves at an underground art film show/experience. there were strange films, being show in strange ways, and a maze of sheets in one corner with guys in strange costumes running projectors while other guys made experimental music on the other side of the sheet. we couldn’t find our way out and weren’t “allowed” to go out the way we came in. i can’t say either of us really enjoyed the art, but i did enjoy the experience of seeing what other people were passionate about. i love to see that in people; i find it helps me appreciate the art i do like even more. seeing the wonder expressed by those artists helps me notice my own experiences of wonder even when they’re small or in regard to something i’m not expecting that response to.
and what “wonder” entry could be written by a self respecting burner without mentioning burning man? it’s almost cliche to me at this point to mention it, but the reason things become cliche is because they’re true, right? it’s some of what i experienced at the film thing, but also sometimes it’s so simple it’s amazing. many nights, in the evening, just as the sun is setting, lots of people go out with lots of kites and hoist them up into the air. it’s just so easy and so basic and so childlike and so quiet and so … perfect. i love it.
