Shifting Perspectives

“I savored every step, each give of leaves and twigs on the path under

my boots. The pungent scent of the moist earth and newly sprouting

grass made me feel good and alive despite what was before me.

The twittering and chirping of the birds, pretty and clear from a distance, died away when I approached or as the occasional car passed.” ~ Gifts Unexpected

There is nothing comparable to having cancer or a life-threatening trauma or experience, and I honor all those individuals as the only ones who truly understand what it is like.

As I wrote my first novel, Gifts Unexpected, I interviewed women who had experienced breast cancer, for I wanted to represent the experience in as valid a way as I could. One of those women told me that this phenomenon of piqued perception (that I describe in my novel) happened to her and has remained with her.

Have you ever experienced something like what I described in my novel? Whether or not you have been challenged with a life-threatening situation? A time when one or several of your senses were heightened, when the individual leaves on a tree became uncannily visible to you, or the soft scuffle of a lizard’

s toes as he skittered away drew your attention in a way as never before? Or have you been surprised when you suddenly noticed specks of gold or green in someone’s eyes that have been there all along? Purely magical.

“I wondered at the heightened perception of my surroundings

that I experienced on that morning walk to see my doctor. Was this

shift in the focus of my attention a result of my morning’s experience

and the possibility that I had cancer—that my life might be shortened?

I recognized that something inside me, previously dormant,

had been loosened; its protective seal was now broken. Unsure if

the cause was the morning’s messenger or the message itself, I felt a

change inside me.” ~ Gifts Unexpected

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