It was a simple challenge. Not like an Ironman, or even a 5K. It required no sacrifice, no money, no great effort. 

 

Rachel Naomi Remen invited her patient to ask three questions. 

 

What surprised me?

What moved me?
What inspired me? 

 

These are invitations to be curious. She prompted them to believe that there are moments worth noticing. When she asked this of her busy client, a doctor who worked grueling hours with people whose bodies were splotched with disease, he needed coaxing. 

 

"Cheaper than prozac," she told him. 

 

The man whose energy was threadbare said that at first nothing showed up. His ability to observe such things had long ago been eclipsed by data, and scientific rigor. But gradually in the last minutes of his packed day, he would allow himself to wonder. And there it was. The child who looked up at him with trust. The mother who was fighting cancer herself and yet managed to dress her little girls in matching dresses and braid their hair. The nurse who paused long enough to smile gently into a woman's eyes before inserting the needle even when time was crucial. 

 

He told her that the lead time was lessening. While at first he would only become aware hours later, he was beginning to notice soon after, and eventually while it was happening. It had a powerful effect on his ability to be present. Which it turns out is less draining than being on a treadmill.

 

My own answers come reliably enough. Hearing my daughter recount the hospitality she was given in Madrid by her hosts, which went far beyond expectations, moved me. Aurelle had left by public transportation for the airport and when they realized her passport was still on the bed they leaped in the car to chase the bus for a hundred miles. A friend described the last arm wrestling negotiations in selling her house, and how the agent was willing to swallow some of her commission to make it work. I was inspired, though I will never know her name. There is a documentary called Bird Brain, documenting how crows can use tools to solve problems. That surprised me.

 

The splendid truth is that such instants arrive as regularly as wind and foliage. Noticing them is another matter entirely.