The view outside my window looks onto a small pond in which several large brightly colored Koi swim lazy circles. An artificial stream and waterfall provide background accompaniment to the cheerful melody of songbirds. The home I live in is not my own – I live with my parents who help care for me – and the pond belongs to the neighbors. Suburban beauty.
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| wild daisies along the backyard fence |
Previously I lived in an apartment in Seattle where my views were largely dominated by asphalt and concrete with one lovely slice of sky just above the three story townhouses across the street. To the constant background roar of traffic was added the more human sounds of conversation and music that wafted through the thin walls of the building. Filling every patch of dirt along the sidewalks lining that particular block of 22
nd Ave NE were flowers, shrubs and trees creating tiny magical islands of lush greens and vibrant colors.
The yearly show in my Seattle neighborhood began with crocuses in the late winter, followed by daffodils and narcissus of every sort, then tulips, irises, rhododendrons, azaleas, lilacs, roses, hollyhocks, magnolias, dogwoods and yet more flowers and flowering trees than I can recall or name. In the spring and summer pots overflowing with kitchen herbs, geraniums, nasturtiums, lobelia, African daisies, pansies, petunias, and again more flowers than I know by name, lined decks and patios. Birds built nests, drank foul water in the cracks of the road, and called out their merry songs. At night one could see the occasional raccoon or possum and people filled the streets by day and night. Beauty was everywhere in sights, sounds, and even fragrance – of spring lilacs and summer roses, cooking dinners, scents from the local bakery and coffee houses, grilling meat form the neighborhood burger joint – free for all to enjoy. Beauty and life in the urban wilds rivals anything in the country or suburbs. And I know – I grew up on over 200 acres of fields and old forests where an encounter with deer or a bear was nearly as likely as meeting a neighbor on the road.
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| early spring weeds in the sidewalk |
Chronic illness seems to have shrunk my world but beauty is always there. I see it now in the tiny ecosystem of “weeds” growing in the cracks of a sidewalk. I see it in the cover-plate of the local sewer access. My beautiful world is one block long – the length that I can walk. Much of the block has a rugged stone retaining wall at the perfect height for sitting and the sun-warmed stones sooth the pain in my legs. As an exercise in seeing the diversity of beauty in my world, I started photographing ordinary details within the single block that is now my short tether. Every feature and aspect of the interwoven tapestry of life that connects us all one to the other is beautiful just as it is.
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| detail of stone retaining wall |
Beauty is a state of mind, a quality of our attention and intention, and can be cultivated and nurtured as a habit of mind. In the midst of suffering and despair beauty calls to us, pulls us from the claustrophobic confines of our private agonies and deepest fears. Despite the ubiquitous herbicide that one of our neighbors annually sprays in the cracks of the sidewalk, the lovely weeds and wild growing things will again be back next year. Beauty is impermanent, changing, fleeting and unceasing. It is beyond our control, akin to kindness and compassion, to know beauty in its variety is certainly to be touched by grace.
