I have begun to stalk the beautiful.
I carry my camera with me everywhere, seeking beauty in the most obscure places. Like coffee. Or legos.
Beauty. Right here in the family room at 7 am.
But really, this is my life. I can find the beauty in this everyday or lose myself in the minutia of what isn’t pretty. Like the sandy floors or heaps of dishes or mountains of unfolded laundry, all beckoning my critical gaze.
It won’t ever all be done, so I’m working to find the beauty lurking behind the chaos; the bliss lurking inside of the “work”.
Yesterday we were blessed with an afternoon with friends on their homestead, tucked into the hills outside of Viroqua.
They are a brilliant study in finding the beauty and joy in the everyday as they grow their food, wash their clothes, cook their meals, raise their girls and build their home – all by hand, day by day.
Welcoming beauty and purpose into a day so filled with “work” transforms their existence into something rather magical. Their life is full, real, lived, and beautiful. And I admire them in a very big way.
Beets. I glimpsed some of the beauty you speak of in my beets today. I had to move them from their graphite-colored pot to a stark white bowl to make them more photogenic. Funny how “photograph” has become one of the necessary steps in cooking or baking, and the cooking utensils are chosen equally for aesthetics as for function. Man, they’re gorgeous, those beets.