Appreciate Beauty

Today was pretty horrible.

A long drive home.
Traffic.
9 hours in the car.
With a 3 year old.
And two dogs.
And then the part where I accidentally left the back windows partially cracked during a carwash.

Good times.

Sigh.

But, there was a moment in the early afternoon, a quiet moment, that made my soul happy.

Driving through Georgia, near Augusta, there was a beautiful clearing. And hills in the distance. And a perfect soft blue sky with bright white gentle clouds. And this song popped into my head by the Weepies. It fit the moment perfectly:

"All this beauty;
You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide
All this beauty;
We traveled all night
We drank the ocean dry
And watched the sun rise..."

And we actually had that CD in the car...so I got to listen to it soon after.

All this beauty. Really, it's around us every day. I just need to close my eyes, and open them anew to see it sometimes. That one little moment of appreciating beauty was the saving grace of the day. (And then we did sparklers when we got home, which was pretty fun, too, but I was really exhausted, so it wasn't quite as moving!)




What song can pull you out of a funk? And what places, when you see them, can calm your spirit? There used to be this beautiful road where I grew up called Rocky Creek Drive, and it was just so gorgeous that my sister and I would go out of our way to drive on it. A real live happy place! Were we the only ones who had a place like that?

Traveling

We're visiting family down South this weekend. Fun! And exhausting (the traveling, not the people!)! Here are some of the highlights. Flannery with her great grandmother "Mema." I love how they're looking at each other with complete adoration.
Happy Cousins
Flanna with my dad. I just love how he looks shocked that I'm taking a picture.
My parents with their grandkids after eating yummy mexican food at one of our old family favorite restaurants. A wonderful blast from the past! This is after we drove by the courthouse clock that my dad worked on (he's in construction) way back when, pointing it out as a happy monumental link to this old home town.

And tomorrow, if the weather cooperates....the zoo! I have so many special memories of going there with my family as a child. Can't wait to see what's changed and whether anything remains the same.



What places hold special meaning in your life? Are there certain places that make you feel like a kid again and also very very old at the same time? That's what visiting the town I grew up in does to me.