3-5 good things I noticed

 Art of Noticing Newsletter by Rob Walker

Last February, I decided to write down 3-5 good things I noticed over the course of a day — sort of a version of a daily gratitude exercise, but partly just noting moments of actual awareness and clarity. That first day’s entry, for instance, includes “sound of leaves falling.”

Over the weeks I drifted away from gratitiude-y vibe altogether and focused fully on those mini-episodes of attention.² These aren’t especially designed to be revisisted, and definitely aren’t intended to communicate with third parties. These are just for me, and for just right now —  the diary of a passing moment.

Put another way, they are just stuff I jotted down.

Really, this is the first time I’ve even bothered to page back through this jotting, and I can hardly read my own handwriting. Some jotted entries:

• Small red flower

• Rain smell

• Fog horn

• Cat shadow

• Slice-y clouds

• Lizard eye

It doesn’t really matter if if the jottiing calls to mind the specifics of, say, someone’s notable outfit on the street, a remark from a stranger at the grocery store, a neighborhood kid dancing on the sidewalk, or the loud crow in the Walmart parking lot this morning. In fact, it doesn’t actually matter if I observe something and forget to jot it down at all.