It started when I was a young(er) adult, in my hometown. It was a small city, nothing much to boast besides a new(er) Super Walmart, a Hobby Lobby, and a pretty park with a pretty man-made lagoon that coaxed the momma duck and her ducklings every spring. Come to think of it, I think it started much sooner.
My grandparents owned a farm, and we’d often drive there to visit for holidays or just because. I remember distinctly, on the drive home on a winter night when the sun was setting, just considering the beauty of flat Midwestern farmland. The sun’s last rays were refracted in the ice crystals in the cold sky and they put off a serene glow that just couldn’t be captured on camera. Not that I had one back then, least of all on a regular car ride across central Illinois.
I saw the red lights on the towers blinking in the distance, reminding the airplanes of the powerlines. I rode along in the backseat with my sisters in our old brown station wagon. And I knew then that I’d have the ability to find beauty in everything.
When I was a teenager, I remember driving out to the “ghetto” side of town. That is, the older part of town by the river, to go to A&W. In fact, this part of town was not far at all from where I lived. On that particular route, we passed by a chemical plant amidst some run-down buildings, and even then I found beauty in the straight lines, bright lights, and plumes of steam. And then I knew I could find beauty in everything.
Now, as an almost-30-something, no longer a young adult, no longer seeing the world through new eyes but faded and sometimes broken lenses, I can still find the beauty in everything. Even in the desert where every shade of brown originates. The beauty of brown, as a friend’s impressionable 10-year-old son said. Yes, the beauty of brown.
The beauty of transient green after a monsoon. The beauty of cooler air coming down the mountains, signaling that maybe, just maybe, we will soon have a reprieve from summer. The beauty of my decidedly abhorrent brown carpet, tread on daily by two people who love each other with an undying love. The beauty of life, and how it changes so rapidly so that we never have a chance to catch our breath.
I can still find the beauty in everything, and I will until the day I die.
mercies per mile 