find beauty in unexpected places

I went for a walk yesterday because I felt quite angry with my family. They all have important things to do, which means that I end up doing all the cleaning shopping cooking laundry… And I just help them… and then my husband makes me feel a failure because he adds to the stress by asking me to go skiffing (a kind of rowing) which I only enjoy when everything else is “finished”.

In this resentful frame of mind I found the print of a leaf on the pavement. I think that we all know that autumn leaves are beautiful, but I was very moved by the shape of the leaf, just a damp shape on the pavement; an acer leaf, very graceful.

So I stopped to look at it thinking: there is a message for you from this beautiful thing.

And after a while it came to me that the shape we leave behind is important. For when the leaf has blown away, for a while it leaves something behind; a memento of its grace.

at finding beauty in expected places, eg. certain young men…

I’ve always had this feeling about him, that he’s a special person. When I look at him I just smile so gratefully that he exists at all. I don’t know why: he seems to be at peace with hemself, or something. He has dreadful acne, but he has something that makes me register his presence as a beautiful thing.

a bright blue lobelia growing in a crack in the paving outside the hotel in town called “The Ship Inn”. The seed must have fallen from one of the hanging baskets they have overhead. It made me pleased that nature can still surprise us by doing its own thing.

which is always my job: why doesn’t Ashley ever do it? and there I found an enormous fern, bright green, very beautiful and lush. I know it was just a knot on the ground a few days ago. My goodness: the summer comes so quickly!! And I suppose it may be a bit turbocharged from being right in front of the compost bin.

to my memory is a pretty dull park. Trees, grass, possibly a pond. I had low expectations.

But Regent’s Park is posh! There are little avenues of artificially-straightened trees leading to fountains that trickle and splosh, there are cleverly planted flower beds in very surprising (not entirely tasteful) combinations, and the whole thing is a riot of colour although today was very cold. Had to walk walk walk to keep warm.

as I was clearing up my daughter’s sick the other morning, and it occurred to me (the way it would) that you can’t see the beauty in ALL things. Some things are disgusting.

in trees in blossom. Florence was beautiful roller-blading on the promenade, she’s poetry in motion. My mum’s bruising is fading, and I would be sorry to say that her very deep purple bruises change colour in a beautiful way, except that it means she’s healing, and that IS beautiful.

Yesterday I finally got out and gave the garden a few hours attention and the earth was a fantastic texture; dark, damp and fine. Also a camelia had come into bloom!

And they are white tulips (from Stan) and red and orange roses (from ashley and Florence) and a bunch of mixed daffs (from myself) so they are making me happy this week. What I love about tulips is the way they move, they really have a life in their vase. I even like them when they start to turn inside out, the shapes are so interesting.

in the garden, which makes me glad. I planted them, and I had imagined they had all vanished, but here they are, quite big and bright. Small daffodils too, but not in flower yet. The garden was warmer today, I thought I might go out and pay it some attention. it’s so sad in the garden in winter. A few plants have not survived. The winter being so dull, summer is even more of a miracle!!