Notes From the Window Seat
Life is full of extraordinary moments hiding inside ordinary days—if we're willing to slow down and notice them.
Join photographer, traveler, author, and storyteller Marty Pearson for conversations that explore travel, photography, pets, and the stories that change the way we see the world. From quiet beaches before sunrise and coffee shops filled with new friends to adventures in Antarctica, Africa, and beyond, every episode is an invitation to look a little closer and discover what's been there all along.
Along the way, you'll uncover unexpected lessons about creativity, relationships, resilience, business, and living a more intentional life—because every journey has something to teach us if we're willing to pay attention.
Some episodes will inspire your next adventure. Others will challenge the way you think. Many will simply remind you that the most meaningful experiences often happen when we slow down, stay curious, and notice what others might miss.
Whether you're a traveler, photographer, pet lover, business owner, or simply someone who believes there's always more to the story, pull up a chair by the window.
Because the best views aren't just outside the window—they're the ones that change the way we see the world.
Notes From the Window Seat
What Are You Looking For?
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What are you looking for as you move through your day?
On a beach I've walked for years, I rarely pick up shells anymore. But I'm always looking for sea glass—those tiny pieces of white, green, and occasionally blue glass that have been softened by years in the surf.
Finding one feels a little like discovering treasure. But I've realized the real gift may not be finding the sea glass at all.
It's the looking.
In this episode of Notes from the Window Seat, I'm taking you along on one of my walks before sunrise to explore anticipation, attention, familiarity, and the small things that can still delight us.
Because sometimes the treasure isn't what you find.
It's having something worth looking for.
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What are you looking for? Not in a big philosophical sense. I mean when you're walking through your ordinary day, what are you actually looking for? Because I've discovered that what we're looking for has a funny way of determining what we notice. Grab your coffee, pull up the chair by the window, and let me tell you about something I've been looking for. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we're going to take a little walk. I walk the beach before sunrise several mornings a week. I have been walking that same stretch of beach for years. Usually I have a cup of coffee with me. It's still dark when I get there, and there aren't many people around. Sometimes there's a few fishermen setting up. Sometimes a runner might pass me. Occasionally someone else is walking along the water. But mostly it's quiet. And I love that time of day. The world hasn't really started asking anything of me yet. There's no emails, no phone calls, no appointments, just the sound of the ocean. And the interesting thing about walking the same beach over and over again is that you become very familiar with it. But familiar doesn't necessarily mean the same. This beach is different every morning. The tide changes it, the wind changes it, the storms we get change it. Yesterday's footprints disappear, new things wash ashore. And if you aren't paying attention, it's easy to think I've seen this before. But you haven't, not exactly. There are always shells, hundreds of them, thousands probably. When I first started walking the beach, I used to pick some of them up. I'd find one that was especially pretty or different, and I'd carry it home. But after you've walked the same beach for a lot of years, you stop bringing the shells home. At least I have. It doesn't mean that I don't notice them. I do. I notice the colors, the sizes, the different shapes, the tiny ones that somehow survive being tossed around in the surf, the big broken ones that make you wonder what they look like when they were whole. Every once in a while I still bend down and pick one up. But most mornings I leave them just where they are. There's something else I'm looking for. Sea glass. Sea glass isn't particularly impressive when you describe it. It's basically just trash. A broken piece of glass that has spent enough time being tumbled around by the waves and brushed by the sand that all of the edges have disappeared. But when you find one, it feels like a treasure. Most of the pieces I find are green. Every once in a while there's some white ones, and very rarely I find a blue one. The blue ones are much more rare, and that's part of what makes looking for it fun. You don't know if you're gonna find any, and most mornings I don't. But I still look. As I'm walking, I'm scanning the sand, looking at shells, more shells, then a rock, then a piece of coral, and then wait. Something catches the light a little differently. I bend down and there it is, a tiny piece of glass, smooth, frosted, edges rounded from who knows how many years in the ocean? And every time I find one, I wonder about it. Where did it come from? What was it originally? Was it a bottle? A jar? How old is it? How far has it traveled? How long has it been rolling around in the ocean before it ended up on this particular stretch of beach? I'll never know the answers to this, which somehow makes it more interesting. Here's the funny part. Finding a piece of sea glass can make my morning. It's worth absolutely nothing, but I'll pick it up, put it in my pocket, and keep walking. And somehow it feels like I've been given a little good luck charm for the day. Which, when you think about it, is kind of ridiculous. But I also think there's something wonderful about being delighted by something so small, so insignificant. We spend so much of our lives waiting for the big things, the big vacation, the promotion, the new house, the milestone we've been working towards. Those things are wonderful, but there are only so many of them, and most of life happens in between them. Maybe we need a few more things that are worth absolutely nothing, but that can still make our morning. I realize something else about looking for sea glass. Even when I don't find it, looking for it changes the walk. Because I'm paying attention, I'm scanning the sand, I'm noticing what's around me. I'm wondering what the last tide brought in. And every few feet there's a possibility that something might be there. That's anticipation. And anticipation is a surprisingly powerful thing. We tend to think the reward is finding what we're looking for. But sometimes reward is simply having something to look forward to. Think about how different a day feels when you're anticipating something, a trip that's coming, dinner with someone you haven't seen in a while, or a package arriving. Even something as simple as wondering whether today might be the morning, you'll find a blue piece of sea glass. Anticipation pulls us into the experience. It makes us look. There's another part of this that fascinates me. Someone could walk exactly the same beach beside me and never see the sea glass. Not because it isn't there, but because they aren't looking for it. They might notice the birds, or they might see the shells, or they might find a piece of driftwood. We're standing in exactly the same place, but we're not necessarily seeing the same things. And I wonder how often that happens in the rest of our lives. We tend to notice what we've trained ourselves to look for. If you're looking for a problem, you'll find one. If you're looking for a reason something won't work, you'll find those too. If you're looking for interesting people, you'll notice them. If you're looking for beauty, you'll start seeing things you used to walk right past. If you're looking for reasons to be curious, the world gives you an endless supply. Maybe attention isn't just about noticing more. Maybe it's also about becoming more intentional about what we choose to notice. I think that's one of the reasons these morning walks matter to me. I walk this beach a hundred times, maybe a thousand. I know what it looks like. I know what the ocean sounds like. I even know where the sun will come up. And it would be very easy for all of it to become background. That's what familiarity does. We stop seeing things because we've seen them so many times before. The shells haven't disappeared, we've simply stopped bending down to look at them. And that doesn't just happen with beaches. It happens with our neighborhoods, our homes, our work, our friends, our own lives. Remarkable things slowly become ordinarily simple because they're familiar, unless we give ourselves a reason to look again. Which brings me back to the original question. What are you looking for? Maybe you don't need to walk a beach before sunrise. Maybe you don't even care about seaglass. But what is the thing that makes you pay attention? What makes you slow down? What makes you wonder? What tiny discovery can still make your day? Because I don't think the lesson from sea glass is that we all need to start collecting things. I think it's almost the opposite. It's about remembering how much fun it is to look, to anticipate, to wonder, and occasionally to be ridiculously delighted in something very small. Sometimes the treasure isn't what you find. It's having something worth looking for. This week I want you to choose something to look for. Nothing important, maybe a particular bird, maybe an unusual cloud, maybe it's something that makes you curious, something you might normally walk right past. And then you see what happens when you start looking for it. You might find it. But even if you don't, you may discover the world becomes a little more interesting simply because you were paying attention. Until next week, grab a chair, pull it up to your window, and keep looking for the rest of the story. You never know when a little piece of blue glass might be waiting for you.