My husband compares the world to a horizon. Everything falls into place and connects along an expanding line. 

I see the world in circles. They spin, bump and bounce. Connections are delightful surprises within the chaos. 

We have been together for over forty years and had this conversation two nights ago. It began because I told him I figured out a way to focus more at work. I start my workday writing in a journal for ten minutes. I write what I love about my job, why I am grateful to have it, how it will make the world better, and what I need do that day. I explained if I simply think about what I should do, the thoughts become images and those images transform into something else and soon I am somewhere else. But written words are meaningful visual patterns, and that holds my attention long enough to formulate a plan. After sixteen years in the same job, it felt exciting again.

My husband laughed and I thought he would say, “You discovered my secret.” But he said, “Really? I never do that.”  That’s when he described his line-view of the world and recited the first verse of his favorite poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

All I could see from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood;

I turned and looked another way,

And saw three islands in a bay.

So with my eyes I traced the line 

Of the horizon, thin and fine,

Straight around till I was come

Back to where I'd started from; 

And all I saw from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood.

As he recited, I imagined Edna turning in a circle. 

That night I lay awake thinking about how each one of us creates our own reality. It makes me want to pay more attention when people talk, ask more questions...see if I can glimpse into their world and expand mine.  

The man I have loved since the moment I saw him, lay next to me. It was impossible to sleep, wondering what else I don’t know about him. 

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