D id you ever pass a store window see a reflection think it’s a passerby and then do a double take: WHAT? That overweight/emaciated/old/childlike (take your pick) person is ME?!!! Or maybe you completed a writing assignment at three in the morning thinking Wow! Shakespeare couldn’t have done a better job! only to reread it in the morning: Ugh! What was I thinking?! Or perhaps you reread a book after several years and realized: I never appreciated that book’s many layers and undertones.

In such cases you’re looking at something — an experience a book even yourself — through a new lens. Perhaps it’s through someone else’s eyes. Perhaps it’s through the lens of time. Perhaps you’ve just taken off your own blinders….

In our worlds of publishing academia and government team writing we often call the last review stage of any document the “final fresh eye.” That fresh eye will often disclose new issues new insights elements that — for better or for worse — were not apparent the first time around.

Come take a new look with us as we revisit past experiences. A simple kitchen remodeling. An unthinking remark made by a student. A life-altering moment. From each we gain a new perspective about ourselves and change the way we view the world around us.

Marcia takes a new look at…

Kitchen Wisdom

“I have kitchen envy.”

What?! My good friend Minkah — one of the least materialistic people I know — uttered these words deadpan as we stood admiring the new kitchen of another friend. Apparently she’d caught the bug infecting homeowners throughout our built-in-the-’50s neighborhood: Kitchen Remodeling Fever.

I went home. Suddenly looking at my aging kitchen through newly critical eyes I knew: I’d caught the fever too.

Let’s face it I told myself. You’ve lived in this house for 25 years and have done nothing. It’s time.

So I did it. Checked out various friends’ new kitchens got lots of advice developed a budget and got an estimate from the neighborhood contractor du jour. Juan directed me to all the right places: the cabinet warehouse the granite yard the tile store the appliance center. And of course numerous late-night trips to Home Depot for assorted knobs handles switch plates faucets and other odds and ends.