Seeing Beauty Around Us

I've heard on more than one occasion from various people that they are moving to a different location because they don't like it where they live.  Either they don't like the climate, or they don't think there is beauty around them.  They don't like the state, or the economy, or any number of other reasons.  Obviously economies vary from state to state and if that is what is driving a person to move, than all the more power to them.  One thing I have noticed, however, is that by simply moving somewhere else because of the economy does not always work out the best.  Take for example the economies of Florida and Connecticut (briefly before I change tracks to the real substance of my post today).  Connecticut definitely has higher taxes, I will not deny that.  However, in the trades, I can make tremendously more in Connecticut than I can in Florida.  I was talking to my cousin who lives down there about painting.  At the time he had recently gotten the entire interior of his house repainted.  I asked how much he payed just out of curiousity and he said about $1500.  My jaw dropped at that number.  His jaw consequently dropped when I told him that is the higher end for a single room in Connecticut.  So simply moving due to economics doesn't always guarantee a better situation elsewhere.  But I digress as I mentioned above.  I have talked to many people who don't like the scenery of Connecticut or where they live and often times have trouble finding beauty around them.  I for one, would have to entirely disagree with anyone who moves due to lack of beauty in their surroundings.  I don't care where you live, beauty can be found anywhere around you, sometimes you just have to look or sometimes you actually have to just be open to seeing beauty in your surroundings.  As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.   I would whole heartedly agree with that, and yet, we can also learn to see beauty in ways that we might have been previously blind to.   To do that, we must sometimes look to others and try and see things from their perspective. 

 

I for one, rarely have trouble finding beauty wherever I go.  Often times, the beauty I see around me varies greatly.  I see beauty in old abandoned factories that I sometimes drive by, derelict, with roofs falling in, vines blanketing every man made wall, and trees growing through windows or any orifice.  To me, it speaks to natures ability to reclaim everything that we can create.  We can create enormous monuments as testaments to our progress, but unless we maintain and clear nature away, they will fall apart and nature will undo everything we do.  There is a beauty there, sometimes harder to see, but pervasive in all the minutiae.  I see beauty every morning when I look out my back window to the windows of houses facing East that reflect the morning sun as it peeks its head over the horizon.  The colors, framed so neatly in the plethora of houses speaks of peace and calm, before the cacophanous sound of life takes hold and the sun reaches its peak.  Even when I walk through the canyons of a city, New Haven, New York, wherever, there is a utilitarian beauty that comes in the form of light and shadows, the sweet smell of diesel fumes (yes for some reason I periodically enjoy the smell), and the swarm of different faces that populate the streets.  And of course, whenever I am driving through the country, wherever I might be, I always see beauty, always.  Whether it is Tennessee, California, Florida, Connecticut, anywhere, anytime, there is beauty to behold.  I never make comparisons as to which area holds more beauty because they are all so different.  Even just in Connecticut there is so much to see and behold that every view or landscape leaves a different imprint upon me, affects me in mildly different ways.  Perhaps the most important thing that we can do to see beauty is to step outside ourselves and look around.  We must remove ourselves from our own lives, forget about our responsibilities and worries, and simply look around us.  Its amazing what we can miss when we get self absorbed or start to think to much about what we have to do during the day.  If only we all took more time to stop and look around, I guarantee our lives would be less stressful. 

People can move wherever they want for whatever reasons they want, but unless they bring their hearts with them and an open mind, their new home will feel all to similar to their old home.  If we are blind to the beauty around us where we live, how will we be open to seeing beauty somewhere else?  Even if we are capable of seeing new beauty, is it just because it is new and different that it seems beautiful or are we truly seeing the beauty for what it really is?   Even if I drive by the same reservoir every day for a month, I still look at that reservoir every day and find something different about it that catches my eye, speaks to the uniqueness of it, and captivates me at least for a few moments.  Some call it the artists eye for seeing beauty in everything, I call it being open to the influences of the landscape around us and the subtle beauty that can be found almost everywhere.  Its noticing the small nuances in the way a landscape changes day in and day out.  Its noticing the moon shining in a slightly different location every morning and casting a different shadow through the sparse early spring branches.  Its embracing the fog on a foggy day and the warmth of the sun on a seemingly perfect day.  So to is it embracing the thunderstorms with their raw power that reverbrate through the very bones of your body.  That too, is beauty.  Wherever we live, whatever we do, we all have it within us to notice beauty.  No two people see something the exact same way.  Even looking at the same flower, two people will notice different aspects of that flower that appeal to their sense, draw from within them a notion of beauty, that one thing that warms their spirit and lightens their load.   For myself, today I am sure I will notice the beauty around me, the phantom clouds drifting overhead or the burgeoning buds on the trees waiting to be rebirthed into the spring.  I don't know what I will see yet, but it will be there waiting for me to notice it.