Beauty

I’m not going to come at you with une explication de texte of a Keats poem. Beauty for me is in the surprising places, in the weird, the unexpected, and it’s always best when shared.

I remember the first time Bryan and I went to Paris I got to watch his face as he turned the corner in Notre Dame and looked up at the rose windows. That first look. The way his breath caught. And we got to relive it all over again when Mary joined us. Some of my very best memories–sharing beauty with my beloveds.

Today, I got to join friends, helping with one stage of a landscaping project. In order to get rid of grass to create a space for more plantings and stepping stones, they put down compost, created a red brick border, and then we put down wet newspaper, layering it like shingles. I caught a photo of this stage. It looked to me for all the world like a modern art installation or a tile mosaic work. This snapshot in time is beautiful because it represents time with friends, potential of the future, and the strangeness of the color and texture out of a perceived context.

For me, beauty is never perfection, it’s a captivating, delightful surprise that makes me feel better than before I experienced it. That’s the kind of beauty for which I’m most thankful.