It’s so easy to miss what’s right in front of our noses

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

William Anders died on June 7 while piloting a small plane, which crashed near Washington state.

He was one of the first three astronauts to orbit the moon in 1968 along with Jim Lovell and Frank Borman. 

On one of the mission’s lunar orbits he took the now famous picture of the earth rising over the lunar surface, which was later described as the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.

Anders, while still orbiting the moon, said: ‘Here we come all the way to see the moon to discover the earth’.

It is a brilliant line. All the engineering, all the development and cost to learn about the moon and what happens, they see the earth and its wonder.

In many ways, it’s that old cliche of missing the wood for the trees.

Last week while stopped on my bicycle at traffic lights on Dublin’s O’Connell Street there was a young man cleaning the pavement. I was impressed with the detail he was giving to picking up rubbish. He certainly caught my attention. It was an unseasonably cold morning, I should have been wearing a coat, and I noticed he wisely had a scarf wrapped around his neck. Maybe that’s  how our conversation began. I’m curious by nature, which meant I was firing questions at him and he was answering them as fast as he could. 

He was explaining how Dublin City Council has people out cleaning the pavements and emptying bins all day long.

The traffic lights changed many times during our conversation. I asked him if he and his team were making a few euro in collecting cans and plastic bottles in the Return scheme. That led on to an interesting chat. He told me that a group of this colleagues had pooled together and with their earnings managed to buy three air fryers. 

He explained to me the early shift that he was on that day was not very profitable. The cans and plastic bottles would be appearing later in the day. At this stage we were both laughing. 

But he did point out that management had no problem with this practice once it did not interfere in their day’s work. I think he also said that there were plans afoot to set up a system whereby they could donate to some charity or other. 

I carried on that day about my business, doing the things I had to do. I have no doubt that my traffic light conversation enriched my day and I got the distinct impression he too enjoyed our chat. It might even have been the highlight of my day.

It’s so easy to miss what’s right in front of our noses, chasing after rainbows and of course realising it was a waste of a journey. I often wonder in our rush to be somewhere else, do something different, be different, are we missing what it means to be authentic and real. And there is also the added advantage of what we can learn from other people. In his Booker wining novel ‘Prophet Song’Paul Lynch writes about happiness hiding in the humdrum. Spot on.