Saturday, October 4, 2008

On A Clear Day....




Fall days can have a certain sparkling quality that I love. Crisp and clear, the colors vibrant, strong and true. Summer's haze disappears, the air is light and one can see for miles. Sitting outside this afternoon, looking off into the distance, I was thinking about clear days and a line from a song I knew long ago....on a clear day you can see forever.

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever was the name of a musical that opened on Broadway in 1965. Barbra Streisand starred in the film adaptation and recorded the soundtrack in 1970, the lyric beautifully written by Allen Jay Lerner. I was thinking about clarity recently, the clearness of vision, so important for a person to possess. I thought about that lyric, thought about the words to that song, and went back to it for another look.

On a clear day
Rise and look around you
And you'll see who you are


Could it be any simpler than that? Look around you and you'll see who you are. How often do we look around, look at other people, look at their lives and see everything but who we are. We see what we want, we see what we think we need. We see what we wish for, we see what we hope for. We can be shortsighted, seeing only what others have, what others are. Often we do not see what we are, what we have. We look with a flawed vision. Perhaps through a filter that clouds things ... making them appear fuzzy, blurred. Obscured.

Taking a clear look, sharpening our vision, removing that filter, reveals something quite different I think. On a clear day we can see possibility. We can see a path, a future, a road to what we want. If we look with clarity we can see solutions, we can see progress, we can see alternatives. On a clear day we can see what we are capable of, what we can become, perhaps what we were meant to be. Certainly we can see what we want to be. On a clear day.

I love to have those clear days, that clarity of vision, to help me navigate a clouded life. The clarity to sidestep the mess, avoid the pratfalls and overstep the potholes that can distract and take me out of myself. Clear days to take a long look and regain my stride and focus on a point in the distance, a point where I want to be. A point where I can be...if I look clearly.

And on a clear day
On a clear day
You can see forever and ever and ever and ever more.

Indeed

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