Finding the Beauty

I went in search of beauty today.  It didn't take away the pain or make the anger disappear.  But it grounded me.  It made me slow down.  It settled my restlessness.  It balanced the ugliness with gratitude.  

First I spent about an hour and a half at my neighborhood park watching the breeze dance on the pond. The trees, trains, and people's reflections in the water went from clear to wavy to obscured and back again over and over.  It reminded me of the influences on perspective and the multi-dimensional way I see the world.  And it made me smile at its beauty.

Then I went to my local Botanical Gardens where I paused in the Formal Rose Garden to breathe in the fragrant scent of the late summer roses before I continued into Ireland Old-fashioned Rose Garden which is my favorite space at the Gardens. I started following a group of Cloudless Sulphur butterflies with my macro lens when two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds zipped past me, so close they rustled my hair. Amidst the quiet, I noticed their chatter. I had never heard their voices before so I just stood there in awe as so many of them circled around me.  I leaned in wanting to learn hummingbird speak.  The sunlight would occasionally catch the iridescent green on their backs or the ruby spot on their throats.

My next stop was a poetry reading a friend had invited me to.  I spent an hour immersed in the powerful words a number of talented poets, enthralled as their ideas tumbled in my mind.

When I got home, I plugged my car in, edited my photos, and then walked over to the brewery across the street for tacos and beer.  I brought my journal along hoping to do some writing but instead just took in the atmosphere of their patio with a light breeze and a dew point that had dropped to 60*F as groups gathered and conversed over good food and drink.

I now watch the sun slowly slip towards the horizon as my apartment grows darker.  I get up to turn on the soft light of my table top lamps and watch the changing colors of the sky.  Railroad workers climb off the tracks to the pick up van that has just pulled in signaling the end of their shift.

My mind wanders in the silence of my studio.  I still think of him.  There was an easiness to my day that I long to turn into something comfortable but I'm not quite there yet.  So I'll just sit through this knowing that soon it will pass.  In the meantime, I'm really enjoying reclaiming my joy and energy.