Discovering Beauty in the Ordinary

Jun 2, 2024 | Worth

Yesterday morning I was fixing breakfast when I happened to look over to the glass doors that lead out to my back deck. And wow. My head snapped up and I was captivated by the glory of the sky over my neighbor’s house. Deep reds and oranges and purples.

There is something amazing about the beauty in the ordinary. It is everywhere. Sometimes small, requiring our attention–and intention–to find it. Sometimes grand and magnificent so that it demands our attention whether we intend it or not.

As I sat to write about my experience, I started looking for a photo that came close to what I had experienced yesterday, I realized that there is no photo that captures what I experienced—because I didn’t think to take it. A tangle of tree limbs, a garage with it’s light shining, a chimney extending into that spread of color, an intrusion of electrical wires. None of which I saw because of the intensity of color that made it all invisible.

That musing led me to the thing that gives my life meaning–championing the unique beauty that each one of us humans embodies. And sometimes try not to. There is no perfect picture to capture who we are. We are each more vast than the sky outside my back door. We are all tree limbs and stumbles. And we are more beautiful than we all too often dare to imagine.

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