THE EIGHT OF DIAMONDS

Do you think people can be a bit like optical illusions?

This week, someone on Twitter pointed out (in a sort of reverse-snooty, 'how-old-were-you-when-you-first-realised' way) that the Eight-of-Diamonds card contains a hidden white figure-of-eight right in the middle.

One or two celebrities went nuts. Thousands of others joined in. I raised an eyebrow too; I'd never seen that before either, despite all my high-rolling days in Las Vegas.

Okay, only part of that last sentence was true; I honestly never saw that, and I've never been to Vegas. From now on though, whenever I have to play Rummy with the niblings, I'll look out for it, and once again raise my eyebrows as I look at that card differently.

Optical illusions like that have always been fascinating to me. I particularly like the ones where you can see two things at the same time, but your brain favours one over the other and then it's really hard to switch. The old woman/young woman picture is a good example of that, or perhaps those Escher-like drawings of rabbit-ducks or tessellating frogs.

I like art that changes while you look at it.

And that's why I've started to wonder today, whether people can be a bit like that too - optical illusions. There have been a few times when I've seen a person, watched how they behave in certain lights, and seen something brand new that I didn't quite appreciate before. It's so obvious once you see it! It can be a lovely revelation, that - a bit like when your niblings can recite the Greek alphabet or tell you what enzymes do in the oesophagus. I guess it could also be powerfully difficult, depending on what it is.

I also like the idea that the world isn't completely the way I thought it was! There are reds and purples in the rainbow; the Atlantic Ocean looks like a woman in an African hat, and there's a white '8' right in the middle of the Eight-of-Diamonds.

Of course. Diamonds. We're all multi-faceted, shimmering, sparkling diamonds - some more 'in the rough' than others. We all need the edges taken off, we all need a bit of cleaning up, we all need some underground pressure, and the right kind of light to capture us, and we all enjoy being appreciated in the fulness of who we actually are.

I was chatting to Winners about wisdom, and being appreciated, the other day. It suddenly occurred to me that the key might be giving away the thing you don't have, to receive the thing you need.

Winners said that that was 'deep'. I guess so, though to me it could look like more of a facile and cheap thing to quip. But perhaps that's one of my own optical illusions? I'm just grateful I have friends who see deep like that. After all, diamonds only sparkle in the light.