THE FAMILIAR OF NEW-NESS

Familiarity breeds something, all right.  I walked paths today that I have been walking for years, and while I know them by heart, I am still alert to anything new, anything I could possibly have missed in the thousands of times I’ve frequented these parts.  They’ve seen me before, and I have seen them, but neither of us has stayed the same.  Even now I don’t know everything I could.  What familiarity has bred in me is fascination.

I have seen April before on this campus, and in this town.  I should have it memorized as well as the poems I learned years ago, the ones that my lips can form without my knowledge, but I walked by familiar buildings today and they seemed new.  Everything does.  Nature has regrown itself, and what is man-made was not willing to be outdone.  It is only my faulty perception that makes this illusion, isn’t it?

If I ever see spring here again, I’ll be visiting.  I’ll have to come back for it.  For now I’m a part of all of this, and I think it’s familiarity that pulls me in.  I’ve never tired of the patterns here.  Today everything bloomed in top form, and I had to get my camera, even though I’ve seen it before, even though it’s nothing new. 

That’s the most amazing part.  It is new.