Tag Archives: beauty

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Nothing “Ordinary”

crape myrtle tree trunk

 

Have you ever looked at some­thing ordinary–something you’ve glanced at hun­dreds or thou­sands of times–and sud­denly seen it as extra­or­di­nary? It’s almost as if I’ve just landed on this planet from some far-away galaxy and I see some­thing as com­mon as the trunk of a tree–in this case it’s a crape myr­tle tree–and I think, “How lovely!” I under­stand for a moment just how mirac­u­lous it is to be alive. My friend Jose would say, aban­don­ing him­self to the moment, “Que bueno!”

If it’s hap­pened to you, let it hap­pen again today, maybe even right now.  If it’s never hap­pened to you, hold still, take a deep breath, and look at some­thing or some­one famil­iar, as though you’re look­ing for the very first time.  Stay with the expe­ri­ence for a few min­utes. Enjoy.

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The Local Summer Pops and the Universal Truths

Ok, maybe not the uni­ver­sal truths, just a sweet change of heart.

It’s been beastly hot around here, oppres­sively hot.  But I got myself out this evening to hear the some­what hokey pick-up band doing their sum­mer pops con­cert on the lawn of the local high school any­how.  An occa­sional squeak from a clar­inet, flutes sound­ing a bit timid, but then a trum­peter floats  his solo out on the evening air like magic,  and together they cap­ture the spirit of the music and sweep you into it.  A young father and his two lit­tle sons lie on the grass in easy affec­tion.  Dogs rest con­tent­edly next to their con­tented own­ers. Occa­sion­ally a child’s voice rises from the edge of the crowd. Fire­flies make you for­give the day’s heat, and a breeze brings uni­ver­sal mercy. The sim­ple things. The sim­ple beau­ties. You come away feel­ing younger, happy to be alive this sum­mer evening.

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