Choosing What to See: A Lesson in Perspective from the Alleyway
Lessons from staring into an alleyway and discovering perspective, God, my daughter and myself
Since making the move back from Minnesota to Idaho in early February of this year, Alyssa and I have each been working on what our new normal looks like, both as a couple and as individuals. For me, this clearly comes with activities, rituals and actions that maintain me on my road of recovery. As I have written about in the past are the practices of recovery that I began discovering in my time during rehab.
Specifically, the practice of Movement is something that I prioritize and do every single morning when I am at my house. Without intending it, a ritual started to form in the minutes after I would complete my workout for that day.
It started with me standing in my backyard in the late winter months and seeing the distant peaks of the Boise mountain range. I would stare at them for a few minutes and try to find some gratitude for the fact that I more or less live in the mountains. It has always been a part of my vision to be able to see a mountain landscape from my home, and here I was looking out to the snowy peaks of the Boise range.
As the months and seasons have passed, my view through my back alley has changed and I have had a progression of impactful lessons that I wanted to share. All from standing in the same spot and staring outwards for the last few months.
Initially, my practice started when I was in a spot of intense sorrow and loss. I needed to look out and have a clear view of something that put things in perspective for me, that gave me joy and provided me with wonder over its beauty. Staring at those peaks each morning gave me that. I was in a place of great hurt and I just needed to stop and recognize beauty in a beautiful scene. It was simple, it was right in front of me, but it’s what I needed in those early weeks after we moved back to Idaho.
As the weeks went on, I was able to free my mind a little more beyond just pausing to take the time to start up at the mountain tops. I freed myself up to start thinking a little deeper about what I was doing. We were all starting to experience the shift and the change in our grief journey as we settled back in to Idaho and began taking steps towards our new normal. One morning I was able to broaden my vision more than I had in the past and realize the entirety of the scene that I was looking at each morning.
I looked at the foreground before me that led up to those mountain peaks. Our back alleyway has a run down rental property, a sagging wooden fence, broken tree limbs and ugly above ground power lines running through it. I had the realization that where you casted your vision mattered. Setting my eyes on some scene or aspect of life that did not help us in our healing journey in the months following the loss of Lucy was not something that we could bear right now. We needed focus, and we needed to cast our vision upwards.
Within a day or two after having this new learning, another one struck me. As I opened my vision towards the “ugly” parts of my alleyway, the things that were right in front of me, I realized something else. My perspective was the thing that was applying the “ugly” label to these items right here and right now. What if, instead, I found gratitude for the things that were right there in front of me, regardless of their outward appearance?
Suddenly, I was thankful for that rundown house and fence because they held quiet, private and kind neighbors. I no longer saw the tree as something that obstructed my view but one that provided the needed shade in the summer and created a home for a pair of raptors that my son became enthralled to witness. And the power lines caused me to think about how lucky we are to live at a time where we don’t have to think twice about flipping a switch or turning up the heat if we’re cold. Electricity is a miracle, and I had the stuff flowing through my backyard.
This sort of thinking and perspective used to make me roll my eyes hard in the past. I get it, it has largely been promoted in a very flowery and passive manner. But there’s real power in it if you give it a try. It doesn’t mean that you accept everything as is. If I owned that home or that fence, I’d fix them. But I don’t, so for right now I just have to accept them.
After making this connection and spending a few more days with this morning practice, I realized that in doing so my ability to sense and feel both God and Lucy in those moments increased drastically. I was able to establish this ritualistic trigger where all I had to do was plant my feet in the same spot and look up. My mind would run through the previous three lessons and thoughts and I would suddenly find myself feeling a connection with my daughter again. It was our little time in the morning together.
I found myself ending these sessions by saying ‘Let’s have a day, Lucy’ and have found that on those few days where I’m traveling and not able to conduct this ritual in the same physical location, all I have to do is think or say those words and I’m right back in it.
In the months since those first four lessons I continued and deepened this practice in perspective, vision and connection. It was an incredibly meaningful practice to start my day. This last week, I had another sudden realization as I looked out to the alleyway one morning. Our new normal has started to get established, the swell of grief still hits, but its intensity and frequency seem to be subsiding. Additionally, maintaining myself on my path of recovery has been consistent and strong.
For all intents and purposes, one could look at my personal situation and feel that things are “good”, all things considered.
In my past struggles with alcoholism, I actually relapsed and went on benders after hitting a really high high in my life. I felt that things had gotten so good and that I was in such control at a certain points that I could reintroduce alcohol, or just have a deserving drink, only to have things come crashing down all around me. Because of this, I am actually quite suspicious of when things seem to be going well in my life.
As I stood looking out over the alleyway this past week, I realized something. I couldn’t see the mountains. Here we are at the tail end of summer, everything has bloomed, the darkness of winter is a distance memory, the weather is starting to cool off and the excitement of Fall lay around the corner. Life is bursting and busy and I suddenly realized that it is during these moments that one often loses site of the thing that grounded them throughout the dark trials of Winter. I couldn’t see the mountains from my yard. But they were still there.
Similarly, I actually have experienced that in my past I lose touch with my spirituality during the high and good times. Its then I felt cocky, in control and deserving of these aspects of life that were going right. It’s easy to reach out in desperation to God as I sat curled in my basement detoxing and thinking I was going to die right there. What was more difficult for me was connecting with him when things were going well.
Today my highs and my lows don’t carry me off like they used to in the past. I’m more grounded, but that grounding has come in large part due to this morning practice. It takes me only seconds these days as I have the patterns so well groomed in my mind all I have to do is glance up in the direction of the mountains and my perspective gets set.
Let’s have a day, Lucy!
If God is, He is everywhere present. He is not an occasional visitor, nor ever more truly present than at this very instant. He is always ready to flow into our heart; indeed, He is there now-it is we who are absent.
— ARTHUR FOOTE
Pause to recognize beauty in beautiful things.
Make deliberate decisions about where you focus your vision.
Change your perspective - Find gratitude for things you take for granted or that might seem a nuisance.
Use gratitude rituals to connect with bigger and higher orders.
Know that God is still there with you, even during the green up when everything is going so well and it becomes easy to lose site of Him.
That’s all I’ve got.
Kyle