House of Blues Style

I had lunch at the House of Blues this week.  Every time I go there, I end up wanting to paint everything in my house.  I want to hammer beer bottle caps into my counters.  I want to replace my drapes with velvet patchwork quilts and my carpets with Oriental rugs.

It might just be easier to move in there.

Find Beauty

I labeled my last post “Find Beauty” and it occurred to me that I should probably explain that philosophy.

Years ago I used to ride the “L” to work. One of the buildings that backed onto the tracks had a homemade sign nailed to its rickety deck. Hand-drawn letters spelled out FIND BEAUTY in glittery paint. The juxtaposition of the rundown back porch with the aggressively upbeat sign always caught my attention. I was inspired by the friendly commandment and made a point to follow its instruction.

Finding Beauty is not always easy. Some things are obviously beautiful: sunsets that burn up the atmosphere, the soft blush of a new bloom, a heart-wrenching ballad. There is hidden beauty, however, in less obvious places: the rainbow in an oil splotch in the parking lot, the precision of flesh-eating beetles, the bare branches of a dead tree reaching in vain into the sky. Although Beauty is always present, sometimes we need to seek out its hiding place. My mission to Find Beauty became a daily exercise in seeing. And like any exercise, when I practiced it, it became easier to do.

I no longer consciously Find Beauty everyday. It's become a way of being over the years and I don't even notice I'm doing it now. On occasion, however, something will be so striking, so arresting that I realize I'm having a Find Beauty moment.

So, where did you Find Beauty today?

Diamonds on the soles of her shoes.

I took a walk this evening in a cloud of diamonds.  Because it's so cold, snow is coming down like glittery soap flakes.  It makes the air twinkle with reflected streetlight and the ground shimmer like the fairy tale landscapes of my childhood dreams.  It's whimsical and otherworldly.

I marvel at how a thin blanket of magic snow can transform the ugliest of alleys into a fantasy landscape.