Beauty Break

Beauty Break

| Marie Griffith

I’m using our Monday School time to introduce a new feature on my blog called Beauty Break. It was inspired by one of my favorite authors, Karen Swallow Prior.

Beauty is to the spirit what food is to the flesh.     Frederick Buechner

Mostly we live in a routine, which is good and necessary. But routines can turn into a mindless going through the motions. If we aren’t careful, we forget to notice the beauty around us.

A Beauty Break is a spontaneous reminder to pay attention, a chance to stop and observe when something catches our eye. To look and see and wonder, then praise the Maker of beauty and the Giver of gifts.

Even a fleeting glimpse of beauty offers joy. Like when a delighted 4 year old points to a tree in the park and squeals “Look!” as a squirrel scampers to the top.

For a moment we can enjoy the intricate design of a seed, a burst of color in a sunset, a towering granite formation, or the creative expression of an artist. Maybe Beauty Breaks will help us learn to be still and pay attention.

I noticed this sweetgum ball in the middle of the trail where I walked last week because it was green and extra spiky. I picked it up and walked around the park several times as I rolled it around in my hand, switched it to the other hand, rolled it around, and switched again. I liked the way it felt in my hands, but I’ve stepped on plenty of sweetgum balls in my time and I’ve never once liked the way they felt to my bare feet. This one would have caused an extra bit of discomfort.

There are hundreds of tiny seeds inside a sweetgum ball. Scientists discovered not too long ago that the aborted seeds contain shikimic acid, which is used to make Tamiflu. No need for them to gather the pointy ornaments though. They found a way to make it in a lab.

Thousands of them will fall in the coming months wreaking havoc on small feet and annoying the meticulous yard owner.

We’ll just have to watch our steps.

 

Big Shot

| Marie Griffith

My husband and I recently visited the city where I went to high school. The city has changed a lot and I looked forward to my Saturday run so I could see some of the new sights. One of the most interesting was an outdoor art exhibition at The Hunter Museum of American Art. I stopped my run to take a photo of this horse standing near two cerulean painted trees.

Minutes later into my run I had a sense of familiarity. I almost missed it because I was dodging pedestrians and watching traffic, but it hit me. I was on the same street where I would park my car and run into the court house to turn in documents for the attorney I worked for in high school. I hadn’t thought about that in years.

One of my teachers helped me get the job. She arranged for me to leave school early each day to work at the attorney’s office. Although I’d worked at a school supply store for a brief time before it, I consider my job with the attorney my first real job.

Sometimes I felt like a big shot, answering phones and filing papers, typing important documents and driving downtown to file dockets at the courthouse.

I was seventeen.

Maybe we all feel like big shots at seventeen.

Lines

The Hard Parts

| Marie Griffith

It’s a hard place to be when nothing goes as planned. When everything falls apart. When all your expectations are unmet.

I expected the first day of our backpacking trip to be cold but not icy. I expected the hike to be difficult but not treacherous. I expected good conversation around a blazing fire the first night in camp. Instead, the icy wind storm forced us to set up and enter our tents early where we ate our dinners alone and tried to stay warm and dry. The long night was made longer as the storm continued through the dark morning hours. The wind howled, trees crashed to the ground, mice scurried around our tents, and we turned over and over in our sleeping bags. The morning brought relief from the storm, but ice covered everything.

It was so cold we didn’t want to move out of our sleeping bags, but we ate breakfast and began the long process of taking down tents and repacking our packs. Some in our group left because of sickness or injury but some more of us thought of quitting. Some of us wanted a toilet, a warm bed, and just not to be on the adventure any longer.

Maybe more of us than I knew wanted to leave the trail, but we stayed with it. We hiked through one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. The frozen forest was other-wordly. Two or so hours into our hike we were out of the ice and ascending the mountain where the sun shone bright on our faces. We ate our lunches on rocks warmed by the sun, then we climbed Little Hump and Big Hump Mountains.

The three day, two night backpacking trip far exceeded my expectations and turned out to be one of the most difficult, joyful, and memorable adventures for me. The hard parts of the trip made the good parts really good.

It’s like that with most anything, isn’t it? The challenges of a thing make the finish that much sweeter. We’re made stronger by the challenges. We learn more from difficult situations and we find out what we can really do.

The hard parts are worth it.

Unlikely

Buttercup

| Marie Griffith

It felt like an unusually long winter. The damp chill in the air mixed with the persistent gloomy skies caused me to yearn for spring more than I have in years. After Mr. Groundhog saw his shadow, I counted the days and looked for signs of the warmer, sunnier days of spring.

One early morning work day in late February, I noticed this daffodil in full bloom. We’ve always called them buttercups. But these aren’t buttercups at all. I thought my grandmother called them by that name but she was a master gardener and would have known the difference.

However I came to know them as buttercups is uncertain but I know spring is right around the corner when I see these sunny colored blooms popping up from the earth.

A glimpse of the good to come helped me get through the rest of winter.

 

I am going to pay attention to the spring.
I am going to look around at all the flowers,
and look up at the hectic trees.
I am going to close my eyes and listen.   

 Anne Lamott

Rise/Set

Eclipse

| Marie Griffith

My daughters and I went to Green Mountain for our eclipse viewing. It was exactly what we hoped for. Serene and beautiful. The eclipse began shortly after we arrived but I hiked the loop trail while the girls picked the perfect spot on the dock for us to watch the moon cover the sun. While on the trail I found several clear sunny spots, stopped to put my eclipse glasses on, and viewed the moon edging its way over the sun. I was awe struck and rushed my way through the forest to join the girls on the dock.

We reclined there, viewed the eclipse with our glasses, noticed the fading light, laughed at each other, guessed at the percentage of coverage, watched a newly arrived spectator look for a good spot to sit or point to the eclipse shaped shadows, put our glasses back on and did it again and again until the moon hid the sun as much as it would on Green Mountain.

The eclipse was amazing. The whole thing of it. The going there, the watching and waiting, the laughing with my girls, the riding home afterward. But there was another wonderful part of it.

Throughout our time at Green Mountain, my oldest daughter was very aware of others around us. The couple fishing on the other dock when we arrived. The old couple sitting on a swing near the entrance to the park. The young men glancing toward the sky occasionally. The photographer setting up his special camera for the perfect photo op. There were others around but these were the ones she noticed. None of these had glasses.

She spoke first to the couple sitting in the swing who didn’t realize the show had started.

“Is there something to see?” the elderly lady asked. “Oh yes,” my daughter said as she handed her glasses over.

The sweet elderly lady was delighted to see the crescent shape of the sun. The gentleman in the swing told us he’d seen two eclipses in his lifetime and thanked my daughter for the offer anyway. The fishing lady took a break from the fishing and my daughter saw her walking nearby. She gladly put the glasses on to see what was happening up above and thanked my daughter over and over. My daughter walked to the other dock to share her glasses with the fishing man, shared them with the photography man and eventually gave them away to the young glancers so they could enjoy the rest of the eclipse without worrying about their eyes.

My daughter wanted everyone to see the wonder in the sky.

She enjoyed the eclipse but was overjoyed to see others enjoying the eclipse.

Caught My Eye

| Marie Griffith

My husband tells me I ask more questions than any person he’s ever known. It’s probably true.

Mom used to tell me I was curious from the beginning with a genuine desire to learn all I could. She called it a zest to investigate and it landed me into some pretty funny situations when I was younger.

I’ve not lost the zest. I wonder about things. I think of a question then search for the answer. Or something catches my eye so I’ll take a closer look.

I was pulling weeds when I noticed a few mushrooms on the other side of the yard. As I walked closer I saw this little family of mushrooms. IMG_5660.jpg

I spent the next few minutes or so observing and taking several photos of the mushrooms.

Just because they caught my eye.

We came into this life so generous, alive, unarmored, & curious.  Curious, in the best, silliest, most fixated, life-giving way. ~ Anne Lamott

A Face in the Crowd

Wonders

| Marie Griffith

“Outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence.
It is our daily bread.”        Wendell Berry

 

Elemental

Strawberries in the Sand

| Marie Griffith

Every year at the beach we search for strawberries in the sand. One of us will return from a long walk on the beach and announce, “I found six strawberries!”  The others of us will admire the find and tell the lucky finder how pretty the strawberries are. Each day more of us will search and find our strawberries and we’ll talk about whose is the pinkest or which has its wings intact.

Strawberries in the sand are actually calico scallop shells and the “wings” are technically called ears. I’m not sure how the shells came to be known to us as strawberries but I can guess it’s because of the red, maroon, or rose colors found on most of them. However the “strawberry” name happened, it stuck. We even call the black scallops, “black strawberries”.

We throw the barnacle-encrusted strawberries back into the waves and continue our hunt. Our favorite strawberries are deep purples or vibrant pinks with no holes and both wings. If the colors are especially beautiful or unique enough, then holes and wings make no difference.

We’ve been calling them by the name for so long we forget that others don’t know about it. A newcomer to our beach gathering gives strange looks when we talk about searching for strawberries on the beach.

It’s just one of our things. Like chocolate gravy on Christmas Eve and stargazing in the back of a pickup on hot August nights, gathering stalks of cotton from the fields in October, or The Sound of Music the day after Thanksgiving.

Every family has those things.

What are some of yours?

Textures

Focus

| Marie Griffith

In response to the Weekly Photo Challenge Focus.

I snapped this photo with my phone because I loved the lushness enveloping me as I stood under the big pecan tree in our yard. This same tree was featured in another one of the photo challenges –  Big.  Here I focused on the worm-like blooms, called catkins.

The catkins are gone now. The wind shook the blooms and released the pollen that triggered watery eyes, sneezing, and coughing for so many. The leaves have turned a deeper green and the nuts are getting ready for fall when the squirrels will steal all the tasty treats they can before someone else picks them up.

IMG_5317

This photo from the other side of the tree is focused on the background instead of the catkins. That wasn’t on purpose but I like it.