Back in middle school, we got to use the fancy microscopes three or four times. Those were my favorite days in science class. I remember feeling that a whole new world opened up that I hadn’t been able to see before. Fast forward a generation and I want to expose my own child to that incredible universe I had gotten just a glimpse of.
So I bought a microscope to use with my son the other day. His science units are starting with cells, then moving to plants, animals, fossils, and rocks, and it seemed like we could look at all sorts of things relevant to what he’s learning.
When the microscope arrived, we looked at the prepared slides that came with it and made one of our own. He was excited. I was excited. Our curiosity was piqued. Eventually, he grew tired and I carefully put it away, planning on getting it back out again a few days later for our first experiment.
But then I found that I couldn’t think of anything else fun I wanted to do. Every free moment I had I was daydreaming of that microscopic world. I was googling “microscope slides for kids” and “slides to prepare for kids.” I finally admitted to myself the only reason I was adding on “for kids” was just that I don’t own all the very cool microscope accessories to do complicated things. It had nothing to do with kids.
So after everyone was in bed I got out the microscope and played by myself. I learned to prepare slides, staining a bit of my kitchen counter in the process. I raided my kitchen and craft closet for samples and prepared a dozen wet slides. A week prior, I’d never heard the term “wet slide.”
Then I found I could take photos with my cell phone, which delighted me to no end. I could share this world with other people! The iodine I used as stain gave most of my slides this lovely sepia tone effect. The high-tech approach was paired with the colors of nineteenth century photographs to peek into a strange, new world.
This fresh sense of perspective in the world around me awoke something in me. I had always cognitively acknowledged it on one level but was now truly mindful of it on another level. This microscopic universe was everywhere. And it has scale!
The bacteria were tiny dots under my highest power lens. At least I think that’s what those dots in the probiotic were. But onion and mouth cells were huge. Red blood cells were much smaller than the mouth cells but far larger than the bacteria.
Silk fibers, so soft on a macro scale, I can see under the microscope have ridges and hooks on the edges of the fibers, which lock together under hot water and friction (i.e. in the washing machine.) Cotton fibers were smooth and flattened, but the fibers kinked in places. The cotton was so much rougher on the normal level, I wouldn’t have suspected their contrasting qualities. It fascinated me how dramatically different two strands of threads looked under the microscope.
At some point I had to put the microscope away for the night. But I pondered the world that was opening up to me. I mulled over the closeness of a world beyond my eyes and senses that I don’t usually interact with knowingly and directly, but it influences me greatly, and I influence it. And the chance to visit this parallel universe, if only to glimpse it, was profoundly moving.
It was an entirely different experience than googling “onion cells” and studying the images. I could have seen even sharper images online than the ones I’m showing here. But that sense of being transported into another realm, where the normal appearances of everyday objects is changed, made it something completely different. It became a journey.
In learning how to prepare slides – reading online and then trying and failing a few times before really understanding the process – I gained a sense of mastery over the connection between me and that microscopic world. I’m not at the mercy of an outside source to bring me information back. I get to experience it for myself any time I want to.
Reflecting further, I related this visit as Asimov’s “Fantastic Voyage” – where his character was in a ship shrunken down to a size smaller than a cell and traveled through the human body – to my relationship with other worlds that are barely visible to me.
My intuition – that sense in my gut of what is compelling or repelling, the part of me that knows what I know – is a sense I’ve had to work at over the years to learn to see and listen to. It’s subtle, and it’s easily disregarded by my overworked rational brain, but it’s just as real and just as valid. And whether I’m aware of it or not, it has an influence over the rest of me, and my logical mind has influence over it. But they are just as mysterious to each other as the world I see with my eyes and the world I see with my microscope.
Not everyone is going to have a spiritual experience looking through a microscope. Maybe that’s not your thing. I understand that. But there is something out there that can give you a fresh sense of perspective, a sense of wonder. Something to stir your curiosity.
Maybe you prefer a telescope, a mountaintop, or a waterfall. Maybe it’s the code programmed to run your favorite video game, or maybe it’s the ocean. Maybe it’s seeing the world through the eyes of a young child. Maybe it’s a cathedral, or just standing on your own roof and gazing out while you’re supposed to be cleaning the gutters.
It’s not very hard to find opportunities to visit these parallel worlds if you open yourself up to look. For $30, Amazon can deliver a microscope in two days. But you have to be willing to step outside your assumptions and routines just enough to open yourself up to something that may change you – a different perspective.