Beauty (Enough)

"We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it." --Mary Oliver

Lewis Carroll once wrote about thinking seven impossible things before breakfast (in Alice in Wonderland, of course) I have been thinking lately about seven beautiful things with breakfast.  Since my mornings have been slow and reflective, I find I have different eyes to see what is all ready around me.  I have learned: the thing about beauty is not just in the eyes of the beholder, but also in the experience of the beholding. It is not just a thing, not something beyond the self, it is a kind of noticing, appreciating and praying.  Beauty and noticing it is as much of a practice as chewing or breathing-- though I suppose its a bit of both those things.  You don't notice mostly how you're chewing or how you're breathing, it's just a doing.  Could Beauty-breathing-chewing-noticing be the same?

Seven beautiful things while breakfast:

• Zinnias in a mason jar, cut from an abundant garden after a lovely dinner.  With scissors in hand, mud still on the blades, I waded through the newly dewed grass in the gathering dusk to pick from among a hedge of beauty just enough blossoms for two jars.  To look at them now reminds me of the gorgeousness of that evening.  And also of a day about a year ago now, when zinnias in mason jars were on vintage table cloths, friends and family gathered as I married Darling Husband.  The bright blossoms exhuberating a joy of a year, and a joy in beginning new.
• The smorgasbord of flavors in today's morning coffee.  Having just run out of usual beans, we supplemented with the flavored coffee (not usually my thing) gifted to us last Christmas, plus some grounds "borrowed" from the church kitchen next door.  On first sip, it was strong enough to chew and explosive in Frankenstein-ish flavors.  An interesting delight in making due.
• A bowl of very ripe tomatoes.  Which I normally would not eat, being squishy in consistency, they are lovely to behold.  This morning I see possibility and confidence in new skills.  Maybe I could make and can them to be salsa or spaghetti sauce.  Possibility is a beauty to behold.
• A new day of sunshine glowing golden on the trees in my backyard.
• The rumble of nerves in my stomach in facing new challenges-- today an undertaking of work in a new setting, caring for kids in their daily in between: school and home life.  Beauty in accompany and anticipated play.  I hope they like me.
• My father's birthday celebrated just yesterday.  A beautiful thing to be 60 years and one day.
• The blossoming capacity to see graces of beauty in this day.  (Which is sort of cheating, but the practice itself is a noble and worthwhile enough to hold beauty of its own)

Could you name seven?  May your mornings, noons, afternoons, and evenings be full to the noticing of beauty abundant.  Be very well, friends.