It’s astonishing.

The image is the exact same, and yet my eyes see it transform into something new every time I look at it for a few seconds. Is my mind playing tricks on me or am I seeing precisely what I should be seeing? What’s going on?

One day, it’s a wise old man. The next week it’s definitely a desert creature. “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” just popped into my head. Not one of its countless comedic moments, but the most emotional scene of the entire series between Will Smith and his Dad.

The background is now leaping into the foreground and vice versa. There it hangs in its strong black frame, with its white background and bold colored shapes of blue, green, red, yellow and black trying to define itself, but with a gentle fluidity that allows it to change upon fresh glance.

Art is frustratingly ambiguous on Monday and magically inspiring on Saturday morning. The artist clearly painted with great intent with his brush strokes. Still, a new viewer will all but certainly have a varying view of the artist’s proposed meaning when compared to someone who has looked at it before for some time. The painting has a unique story to each observer.

Anyways, I was driving by the Columbus Commons during lunch on Monday, alongside the construction of the new apartments. The apartments look like they should be a fantastic addition to a growing metropolitan area. Conversely, the opposite side of the street looks depressed, lonely and void of any hope or acknowledgement. In the past when I’ve driven past this same stretch, the sight of it has just been flat out sad with the same worn, aged, dirty store fronts. I wonder what it used to look and be like?

That is until, while driving past this area, a song that was playing in my CD player (yes, some people still buy CD’s) sparked a flurry of imaginative ideas for what this strip could look like. All of a sudden, flashes of bustling small local shops mixed with a big-name brand here and there electrified my mind with images of smiling faces, adults and children alike, proudly parading the street with a new sense of optimism and happiness. This picture lasted only a few seconds, but it was undeniably vivid.

I’m no architect (nope, I’m no Ted Mosby or George Costanza), but perhaps that’s not who those old buildings need right now. Maybe what that side of the street needs is someone to stop, pause and take a long, uninterrupted look on a Saturday morning.