Years ago, my new career with Olympus took me to Long Island, New York, for training. We spent our days studying microscopes, optics, and the physics of light. It was fascinating work, learning how lenses reveal details invisible to the naked eye.
One afternoon, the president of Olympus encouraged several of us to take the train into Manhattan. The Museum of Modern Art was hosting a major Henri Matisse exhibition, and he insisted it was worth seeing.
He was right.
Walking into the gallery, I was immediately struck by Matisse’s bold colors. Brilliant blues, deep greens, and vibrant oranges seemed almost to glow from the canvas. One painting in particular stopped me. It was one of his Open Window paintings.
While others admired the colors, I found myself wondering about something else.
I wanted to know what lay beyond that open window.
I stood there longer than I expected, studying the rooftops, the sea, the trees, and the sunlight. The painting invited me to look beyond its frame, as though Matisse were saying, “Come see what I see.”
Then we moved on.
At least, I thought we had.
Years passed. My career changed. I returned to pharmacy, became a grant writer, and eventually found myself writing more than I ever imagined. Along the way, I discovered that I was becoming just as fascinated by art, music, and literature as I had once been by science.
Looking back now, I realize something entirely different was happening.
Science taught me to look closely.
Art taught me to look deeply.
There is a difference between knowing and understanding.
Knowing tells us how light travels through a microscope.
Understanding recognizes how light spilling through an open window can make us stop, wonder, and see our own lives differently.
I didn’t understand that painting while standing in the Museum of Modern Art.
I understood it years later.
Sometimes the most important lessons don’t arrive when the experience happens.
They arrive quietly, years afterward, when life finally gives us the perspective to understand what we were really seeing.
I went to New York to learn how microscopes use light to reveal what the eye cannot see.
I left with something I didn’t recognize until years later.
Sometimes the most important window we ever look through isn’t hanging in a museum.
It’s the one that quietly opens inside us.
