December 20: What's Not to Love?

Life is a work of art, or so they say.  What beauty do you regularly appreciate/revere in your life? (Neha)

This is one of those topics where I feel like I could go a mile wide, but not particularly deep. I feel like there is so much beauty in the world...but I don't know that I have the artistic expertise to describe why I feel the way I do.

Home.

I love natural beauty... especially of the the ever-green trees and rolling, Midwestern fields variety. Mountains and  oceans are stunning, to be sure. But there is something about the vastness of wide-open spaces and the majesty of tall, tall trees that really draws me in. Maybe it's because I grew up in a pine forest (wink, wink Lanie), but I'm real into moonlight sparkling on the snow...casting dramatic shadows and creating that ethereal inability to tell where the sky starts and stops.

A park above the city...built on
abandoned elevated train tracks

Now that I'm a city girl, I've become increasingly appreciative of art in urban public spaces...and all the ways architects and planners and landscapers and artists (and more) strive to bring beauty and creativity and celebration to the spaces in which we spend so much of our time.

From the plaza outside Target Field to the High Line Park in Chelsea, people are working so tirelessly to transform our communal spaces. Sometimes, it's about reclaiming abandoned urban blight, while other times it's about going the extra mile to transform a mundane space into one that is a completely integral part of the experience. It is all so worth it.

The art...and all the beauty and contemplation that comes with it...is all around us. Throw in a little sidewalk poetry and it's almost as soothing as being at home in the woods.

Almost.