In my hard drives I have half a million photos.

The camera opens and closes a little window and grabs all the light it can in that moment. Small points on a sensor each play their role and grab their little bit, registering intensity and wavelength. Processors tag each bit of measured light with coordinates on a two-dimensional plane, framed by straight lines and right angles.

And this all seems normal to us because we have done it so often.

We do not think about the lines and angles and coordinates even though our own biology does not perceive the world like that.

We have two eyes, resulting in binocular vision with depth perception, 3D images; the camera has only one eye. We have eyes able to see motion in part of the eye and precision in another. And we have a visual cortex that makes some sense of all of this, and sends that sense on to connect with what we hear, feel, smell, taste. All our body’s senses come together in a “common sense.”

Here I hold this mussel shell in my hand. It is semi-fossil, meaning there is no living tissue left in it, at least none of the tissue we thought of as mussel. It has many other lives on it, bacteria and algae and other microscopic organisms. What I see is nacre, lustrous and pearlescent. I also see that it is covered by black-and-brown flaking skin, and I wonder if I should peel it off to show the true nature of the mussel shell. This is what we have done with buttons, after all.

And with gemstones: we cut off the outside to make the inside shine for eyes like our own. We approach the rough natural world with lapidary tools, murdering to dissect, dissecting to find gems. We cast aside the organic and the soft tissue in hopes of finding the hard and enduring treasure inside, the diamond in the rough, the pearl in the shell, the treasure inside the tomb. Never mind the body; we want only the things that glisten.

Nate has jars of soft tissue on his shelves. I am here for a class on unionidae, and I am overwhelmed by how little I have noticed before, by how much there is to see in such a small space. Few who come to his museum ever look at that soft tissue; most of Nate’s students are there to learn the shells to make money by digging holes for bridge footings, or by consulting with those who need to comply with the law.

What does it mean to contemplate this mussel shell in my hand? Let us begin to consider what it is that I hold. We ask questions like “What is it for? What good is it? What does it do? Can you eat it?” We think with our guts, with our appetitive soul.

But we can also allow ourselves to be silent, and to consider what the shell says about itself.

The question “What is it for?” begins to feel foolish and rude.

This is hard work, asking questions of a mute shell! How can I hear its replies? Where to begin? I sometimes begin by sketching it. To photograph it is to let the camera “See” and to register the coordinates of pixels smacked by photons. To sketch it is dissatisfying because it never looks like the thing we see unless we are very good artists.

But if I sketch I slow down, and I let my hand holding the pen tell my eye whether it is seeing well or only seeing what it thinks it sees. I am no longer trying to move at the speed of light, as I hope my camera will do.

We often think we see what we do not see; we see some light, and then we fill in the gaps. We all have blind spots, and we no longer see them. And then we think we are not blind. We are all above average by our own estimation.

Gaylord Schanilec engraved “Unionidae Upstream” and “Unionidae Downstream.” Two engravings, framed together as one. As I look at this on the wall of the gallery I see: here is a threehorn wartyback; here are two semi fossil shells of different sexes. Maybe giant floaters. I am aware that most people don’t know the word “unionidae.” Most will not see that these three semifossil shells are two species, two sexes. They look like gray lumps. Until you see the lines.

I am starting to see. I look for the growth lines, and I know: they are not like tree rings, showing seasons of weather; they show seasons of growth, following the nutrients of the stream rather than the hours of sunlight. Similar, but different. Shanilec’s Rapidograph pen has traced the lines very finely indeed.

But this is not about making art; it is about making my mind start to see its own unseeing. It is about reminding myself that I see bits of light, fill in the gaps, and believe that what I have synthesized unthinkingly is now something known. I glance at the world and think I now own a fact. My ocular vision is my truth, or so I am tempted to think.

But the shell in my hand as I stand by the river has only begun to speak. It is not just speaking itself, showing its layers, showing its death. It is also asking me questions about itself: why am I here, in your hand? Why am I open, my muscles and connective tissue gone? Why am I only bones, in this riverbed? And then: how long ago did I die? Are there more like me? Am I a fossil? Am I extinct?

And now the harder questions: Why am I holding this shell? What drew me to it? Why do I think part of it is lovely? What does that tell me about myself? What role did I play in its death? How are our lives connected?

And the slowness of contemplating these questions begins to reveal me to myself.