May 31, 2026

We are here to witness the creation and to notice it.

Dillard wrote this during a period when she had retreated to Tinker Creek in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, spending months watching the natural world with obsessive attention. She was tracking how quickly everything changed — insects dying mid-flight, creek water never the same twice, light shifting by the minute. The line is a rebuke to distraction, a reminder that our job is simply to pay attention before the moment is gone. It cuts through because most of us spend our days not noticing anything at all.