Last March, I traveled to St. Louis to present a paper on John Milton. It was a lot of fun. But one of my favorite memories from the trip is the day my friend/co-pilot and I went sightseeing. Our hotel was a couple of blocks from the Gateway Arch, which I’d never seen in person, so we walked over to check it out.

Sadly, we did not get to go up inside it because all the tours were full.

But we did see the outside of it. We took a bunch of silly pictures, like you do when you get together with your oldest friends. And then, in the midst of our silliness, we changed our perspective. We lay down in the grass and looked up at the Arch.

It’s amazing how a simple change in perspective can change the way you see a thing. Whether it’s an iconic landmark, like the Gateway to the West, or just the unearthed roots of a tree that’s preparing to fall, changing one’s perspective, one’s relationship to the thing being viewed, can make a world of difference. The old is new again; the ordinary becomes something magical.

Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it?

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