Attuned Noticing

Lately, I have been more accustomed to noticing things. I don’t know why this just started—I have been working on this practice since 2021—but I think it partly has something to do with the fact that I’m writing a book.

A few days ago, I made this post on social media:

The Friday night before I made that post I went to see the movie Sinners. And it’s that night I realized that I’ve been noticing more things. And it started with where I parked when I went to dinner.

THE PARKING GARAGE

Anytime I go see a movie in theater I like to make a night of it… I try to go on a Friday or Saturday night, so it seems more like a relaxing event, and I eat dinner out before the movie.

Typically, when I go see a movie, I eat Chick-Fil-A for dinner. But this night I decided to switch it up and eat at Mama G’s restaurant. Since Sinners is black made movie, I thought it best to make it a night of supporting black people and eat at Mama G’s which is black-owned—but I also did have a craving for Mama G’s.

Now, whenever I go to downtown Springfield I tend to park in the same parking garage… the College Station Car Park. Not only do I park in the same garage, but I park on the same level and on the same side of that level. I’m even so habitual that I tend to park in the area of the same 3-4 parking spots.

In short, each time I park in downtown Springfield the view that I see when I get out the car tends to be the same view. But this time I noticed something that I’ve never noticed before…

In the past, I never really noticed the view, but this time the clouds drew my attention—I’m kind of a weatherphile (in 3rd grade I wanted to be meteorologist). The clouds may have caught my attention, but it’s the sign on the building that I really noticed… the ‘Palace Hotel 1892’.

A thousand times I parked in the same spot, but a thousand times I have never noticed that sign.

As I walked from the parking garage to the restaurant, I kept asking myself, “Why am I just now noticing that sign?”

The next thing that I noticed was at dinner.

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THE PHILLY CHEESESTEAK

“Wait one doggone minute! Why would he write that heading in article about noticing things?”

I’m guessing you just thought something along those lines. And you’re totally right… it does seem strange to have a heading reading ‘The Philly Cheesesteak’ in an article about noticing things, but that’s exactly what I noticed.

I’ve eaten many times at Mama G’s restaurant, and each time that I’ve eaten there I’ve ordered a Philly cheesesteak—I know I’m very habitual (LOL!). And I’ve taken many photos of that exact meal before, but this time something deep within me urged me to snap a pic of my meal…

To this day, despite me trying to figure it out, I don’t know why I was urged by my soul to take a picture of my meal. I mean… I’ve taken pictures of this exact meal before. But in the past when I took those pictures, I had the intention of posting them on social media.

However, that night was different. I didn’t go into the night planning to take pictures of the night, in fact, I wanted that night to be night that only belonged to me through my memory.

But it didn’t end there.

LEAVING THE THEATER

As I was leaving the theater, I felt the need to snap another pic. I was already outside of the theater, so I wondered, “What can I take a pic of?” I took a quick glance around immediately thought of the AMC sign.

All I did was point my camera… I didn’t try to setup a shot, yet this picture says so much.

It wasn’t until the next day when I was looking back at all the photos that I captured through the night that I noticed the light leaks in this picture.

And I was taken aback because an unplanned shot basically showed the way I see the world at night because of my astigmatism.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Over the past couple of days, I’ve tried to figure out what the significance of all these photos from that night. And what I’ve come up with so far isn’t a big epiphany, but it’s just my soul saying, “Hey Braylon! Look you’re looking with new eyes!”

But now that I think about it, that’s what the movie Sinners is about… perspective.

Maybe that’s what writing a book does to you. It trains you to slow down and notice the tiny details—the details you would normally miss or ignore—in order to write a book that is something worth reading.

And maybe my soul is trying to extend that noticing past just the book writing part of me. Maybe my soul wants me to notice the details that I normally ignore in every aspect of life.

Maybe my soul is trying to tell me, “Braylon, those details you’ve been ignoring may not scream, but they still speak volumes.”

And even as I’m writing this article, I’m thinking to myself, “What else is my soul trying to tell me?”

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