I sat by the pool languidly, trying hard to concentrate on my book. This task was not easy to do while keeping an eye on my kids, who were frolicking in the water. A few trees gave me cover, their leafy shadows a respite from the sun that beat down on the world angrily. A man walked across the deck area in front of me, and out from under his loose tank top peeked a birthmark on his ribs, right below his left armpit. He was with a couple of small kids—his, I assumed—and I imagined their little hands tracing the outline of that pink mark. How his wife may have kissed it, lovingly adoring the thing that made him uniquely him. Did that mark make him feel insecure, I wonder. Or was it just a thing that was there, like your eyes or nose or mouth?

I know this is such an intimate thought about a stranger’s birthmark, a whole inner life imagined in the three seconds it took me to clock it. I promise I’m not a creep. But I love thinking about people and how loved they are in the secret moments of their life. How, at one point, we were all bundles of joy and potential and possibility; a parent’s answered prayer and whispered wish. I like to think about that especially when I’m faced with a person who isn’t particularly pleasant. When I look into them and force myself to see someone’s child, sibling, partner, or parent, I’m able to have more compassion for them. They become a person and not just an idea of a person.

A young child starts crying in the pool, refusing to go to deeper water as her parents coax her to swim. My daughter, all gangly limbs and nosy, is watching this take place as she floats nearby. Next thing I know, she’s climbing out of the pool and making a beeline for me. When she gets to my side, she puts her mouth close to my ear and in a theater whisper says “mommy, that little girl doesn’t want to go to the deep side of the pool but her parents won’t leave her alone!” This matters a lot to her, because she doesn’t like to be forced to do something she isn’t ready to do. I smiled at my girl and told her that it’s okay, the parents are just trying to help her, and to just focus on her own fun. She runs back into the pool and immediately gets into a fight with her brother over who-knows-what. His favorite pastime is finding ways to annoy his sister, an activity in which he holds the gold medal.

I turned my attention back to the little girl, whose parents stopped trying to get into the deep end. She was not crying anymore, but was holding a water gun and was spraying it into the air, happily wading in the shallow water. What did this moment teach her, I wonder? Where do we draw that line between letting our kids have autonomy, and challenging them to become more? Do we do enough of this—this noticing of our children, of other people in our lives, and what makes them happy? Or sad? My brain simply cannot look at a person and not have a million questions about them, apparently.

At this point I’ve pretty much given up on my book and settled into my favorite activity: noticing. I’ve always been a daydreamy kind of person, but I remember the first time I started really noticing. It was was during the first time I commuted home from college, roughly 22 years ago. My university was 32 kilometers away from home, and until that day I had only travelled to and fro by car. On some whim of teenage fancy, I decided to do something I was afraid of that day: to commute home. It would take two train rides, one bus ride, a jeep, a tricycle, and a whole bunch of walking. I had to ask several people for instructions, and once I felt confident enough, I went on my merry way.

I spent a lot of that commute watching people. Noticing, wondering, imagining. I don’t know how obvious I was, this girl in ankle high boots and flared pants just looking at everyone, but I was fascinated. On the highway, there was a bit of traffic and my bus stopped right beside another one. I looked at all those people in the other bus and realized how that one vehicle held so many realities. Each person was their own little bubble, their own universe. We’re all just floating around in our own little soapy dome, sometimes intersecting with others, sometimes floating around together, sometimes all by our lonesome. But no two people every really saw the world the same way—it was impossible. We each experienced life individually, our perceptions dependent on how the bubble bent and reflected the light. Sometimes we get to share the same view but it was always only temporary. Eventually, we always had to float away, carrying with us our multitudes.

I wish people knew how magical the world was, or could be, if we paid more attention to the little things. Especially to people. People are like holograms; we look so different from different angles. I love The way their hair color changes in the light, or how their eyes look a little browner in the sun. The marks on their skin telling more stories than any book could hold; every freckle and mole and scar and wound and mark is a path taken, a choice made. I’m obsessed with how our minds begin to recognize things like the sound of someone’s footsteps, or the rhythm of their gait, the curve of their shoulder, the scent of their hair. Even without intentionally trying to notice, our brains get filled by these details about the ones we love the most, and I think that’s so beautiful. Imagine how much more you’d know if you decided to really take a look. To really notice. I forget names and I forget birthdays but I don’t forget people. I don’t forget how you look when you’re happy, or fascinated, or sad. I don’t forget how you flicked your cigarette away, how you tilt your head back when you laugh, how your back curves when you draw. The way you push your hair away from your face when you’re frustrated, or the way you look just before you’re about to take the stage. I would apologize for staring too long but I’m not really sorry. People will always be my favorite story.

Finally I decide it’s time to get out of my head and plant my feet on the present. I called the kids out of the pool, and they begrudgingly do. We eat lunch, take a shower, and settle down for a quiet hour or so. We found our spots in our hotel room, just lost in our own worlds. Little bubbles existing beside each other, our own floating universes. This is the most beautiful thing about noticing, I think: one day, if I am fortunate enough to have decades more, I’ll always remember this. I’ll be able to conjure up the softness of the light, the coolness of the sheets against my skin. How my daughter’s wet hair dripped down her back, my son’s curly mane flopped against his forehead. How I looked out the window and saw a clear blue sky and green trees. Maybe I’ll get a few details wrong, but I’ll never forget how it felt. In that moment, I had everything I needed. I’ll always have that, always remember that, all because I noticed.