Put on your Polaroids... · The Clarity Collective

Put on your Polaroids...

I don’t know about you, but I remember my grandparents referring to their sunglasses as “polaroids.”

Back in 1937, when “Polarized Day Glasses” first hit the market, people were amazed to finally have lenses that cut the sun’s glare. What many didn’t realize at the time is that polarized lenses also let you see what’s just beneath the surface of the water. As someone who loves to fish, that little bit of extra clarity has always mattered to me. It changes what you notice. It changes what you can’t ignore.

In her chapter The Longing, Oriah asks us to pay attention to the awareness that’s beginning to form, the thing we can’t “un-see.” It’s an invitation to look beneath the surface of our own lives with that same kind of clarity. To notice what’s shimmering just below, asking for our attention. To acknowledge what’s rising that we truly want, even if it feels tender or inconvenient or new.

Because once you see it—once you really see it—you can’t go back to pretending it isn’t there. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe longing is the polarized lens that helps us recognize what’s been waiting beneath the surface all along.

What have you noticed this week?

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