Immeasurable beauty

Do you find things of immeasurable beauty in your everyday life?

Today I was walking down Hollywell street just after 5 pm, drinking green tea, with my flapjack in my pocket. At the junction of Catte street and Broad street a girl cycled past. She had thick long blonde hair draped over one shoulder, wore a large pale pink jumper, and her leather handbag was hanging on one of her handle bars. With one hand she steered her bike, and her other hand held the apple she was nonchalantly eating.

A few days ago I was feeling ill and stressed. I found Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie. It made everything better.

Last year during autumn the 50 meters just outside Keble College's main gates were covered in the brightest gold. Not the kind of shimmering gold you find in eastern orthodox iconography but a warm, buttery gold. The leaves of the ginko trees had changed colours and the sidewalk was paved with them, while more swayed over head. They fell like snow only more lingeringly, dancing as they descend. I could have been walking in a fairy land.

Years ago I came across 'The Underground' by Seamus Heaney

There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,
You in your going-away coat speeding ahead
And me, me then like a fleet god gaining
Upon you before you turned to a reed

Or some new white flower japped with crimson
As the coat flapped wild and button after button
Sprang off and fell in a trail
Between the Underground and the Albert Hall.

Honeymooning, moonlighting, late for the Proms,
Our echoes die in that corridor and now
I come as Hansel came on the moonlit stones
Retracing the path back, lifting the buttons

To end up in a draughty lamplit station
After the trains have gone, the wet track
Bared and tensed as I am, all attention
For your step following and damned if I look back.

I still think it is beautiful.

Just now I was supposed to be working but instead I turned on my Google Reader yet again, and found something else that convinced me of the fact that beauty is everywhere. I hope you think so too.



[via piece of work]