I look at rocks

Sometimes, if I’ve got nothing better to do, I look at rocks.

I suppose that you might say that I’m just wasting my time by looking at rocks. But what else should I do? Watch the unhurriedly drifting clouds drifting unhurriedly across a sky blue sky? Or count the ripples rippling on the rippling river? Or be dazzled by the dazzling sun dappling and dazzling through the leafy green leaves? Or I suppose that I might simply recline myself lightly upon the earth and let the good old world turn at the world’s good old pace around and around and around me as I recline?

And then, eventually, as a matter of course, as day eventually turns to night, I might look up and out and far away and wait for the latest early distant starlight to twinkle into my blinking eyes at the dizzying speed of light. Or I could empty out the clutter from my rattled mind and simply gaze longingly into the face of a full moon rising. Or perhaps on some other day becoming night, might I again seek out a glowing new crescent of reflected sunlight in the descending indigo darkness?

I mean, after all has been said and done, just what, after all, in the world, would have been better for me to have done? And I am quite likely to have said too much already.

And yet, I confess, I am not finished with speaking. There are still so considerably many more barely notable opportunities for watching and wondering. Grass grows. Flowers bloom. Snowflakes fall in winter. And have you seen cottonwood fluff floating like dandelion seeds on a light breeze on a spring afternoon? And of course, one thing is hardly the same thing as another thing at all.

But I must still tell you even more. Have you noticed lately and yet again how so very many things just take their own sweet time doing whatever sweet thing it is that they do. And yet – and yet, I tell you this - if you blink, you might miss seeing some marvel altogether.

And yet I am not finished. I must also add still more uncountable things to what I must also recount.

There are all of those flying birds and those buzzing bees. And don’t get me started on those cottontail bunnies or those teeny tiny red spider mites scurrying around on limestone rocks on the levee by the river on a warm day in May.

It is indeed as Annie Dillard says so well in ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’:

There are many things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But - and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go on your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get.   (p. 16)

And then I have finally come back to this. I had always meant to circle back around to the question of time. Let me be quite clear. My question is this:  just what is my time is good for? What I am talking about is the time when I am merely and simply looking for things for me to look at and see for what they are. That time is my own time. I don’t think of it as disposable time. It is my free time. Valuable time. Possible time. I am simply not about to carelessly throw away the gift of just-being-alive time.

And so, finally, here it is: If I have no other pressing obligations – no people to see, no places to go, no other things to do - that is, I mean, besides looking at rocks – I look at rocks.

Sometimes.

Consider the alternatives. Why, after all, would I waste my time on things I cannot do much about - like politics or the stock market and all of those other scurrying scurrilous current affairs?

Now, I know that you might say that I cannot do anything about the rocks, either. This is true.

But, at least, I find that rocks can be interesting. They are real things. I can stack them or throw them or just not be able budge them even one silly millimeter at all. I can look at them. Or, if I find just the right rock, I might skip it across the river. Of course the skipping rock probably wouldn’t even make it half the way across the Kaw River, even though that often lazy and quite brown river isn’t really all that broad. And then, at some point, that skipping rock would just sink like a stone. That’s life for you.

But in some bit of easy time in between the so-called hard times and hard places, I might just take a look at the very substantial rocks at hand and just wonder about rocks. You know: real, hard, old, unmoving rocks.

I mean, just how has paying attention to all of that virtual jibber jabber been working out for you lately? And have you actually spent any time looking at rocks in your own dear time?

But pardon me.  I meant only to talk about my own sweet time. Not yours.

And here’s just another bit of a conundrum about time that I would like to share with you. After all of my careful attention to the wonders of the natural world – and time - I have often discovered that just utterly wasting a little time, now and then, turns out to be the very best thing I could have done with my time. Who knew?

But, once again let me be clear. I don’t necessarily mean that the time I spend looking at rocks is wasted. Nevertheless, my reasoning finally comes tumbling down to this quite obvious absurdity: In the end, for me, looking at rocks often turns out to be neither a complete waste of time nor the best thing I could do. And so what else is new?

Therefore, if I have nothing better to do than to look at rocks, there seems to be nothing better for me to do than to look at rocks.

QED

And one postscript: Now your time, of course, is your own precious time and I do understand a little something about pressing obligations. But if you want my advice, spend a little time looking at rocks. And let’s face it, you could do worse.