It hangs on the wall of the waiting room. I notice it immediately. As a novice needlepointer, I can see that it is intricate and carefully wrought, and must have taken ages to make. The others sitting and waiting, or coming and going take no notice of it at all.

I ask the staff who made it and how it came to be here, and no one can tell me. There is no one left in this busy place that knows anymore who made this beautiful thing. And day in and day out, people pass by it as though it were invisible, rendering the hands that made it invisible also.

Fast forward to a hotel lobby in Los Angeles, California. It was bustling with the important and the self important. Everyone is in a hurry. Then I see her. A tiny woman in a housekeeper’s uniform. She is wiping down surfaces, and I notice that she is doing carefully, completely, doing this small thing with excellence even though no one is watching. And no one sees her at all. She is invisible.

I’m sure she has a story, and but for the language barrier, I would have asked her for it. So, I do for her the only thing I can do. I notice her, I commend her good work in my mind. I see her and she is no longer invisible.

And as I walk out of the lobby into a sunny California day, I determine to see, truly see everyone I meet this day. To notice. To be fully present. To not miss excellence and beauty, large and small, to render it all visible.