Friday, December 6, 2013

In the Eye of the Beholder

Driving around on my errands today, I was looking in my rearview mirror, and I saw the mist curling over the mountains, putting out tendrils like hands and shrouding the gray-blue slopes with white.  I thought, I am so lucky to live in a place where, even on a day like this, where the rain is indecisive and the air is thick with moisture, there is still beauty.

But then I started to think about it.  Really, is there any place on earth that does not have beauty of its own?  

The desert, where earth is stripped bare and its essential colors shown, and life is rare and precious. The ocean, where the water becomes white foam on the shore and darkens the sand to a silvery gleam.  The forest, where the sunlight turns the trees into emeralds and gold, and the leaves coat the ground in a carpet of renewing life.  Even the city, with its lights and colors, and the sunlight on the glass and steel.

It really is true, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  The trick of seeing beauty around us is to be a beholder, to be someone who is looking for beauty.  If you don’t ever look up, if you always keep your eyes on the ground, you will see nothing but mud, nothing but concrete, nothing but the scuffs on your toes.  But if you look up, then the sky is always there, and the world is beautiful, and we are all lucky to live here.

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