Tag Archives: cloud

by

beach

I took this about a month ago, on an evening walk with my daughter. She is airborne: her feet are not quite touching. I have pictures of both my kids airborne at the beach. Water, wind, air, sky: I think that is their effect….

The new health care bill would cut medicaid by billions. That is our poorest Americans and most disabled. Is that how we make America great? Great for whom? Call Congress and say no….. Call again and again and again. They listen to money but in the end they need votes.

by

ugly

The letter U in virtues and views.

U for ugly.

Is ugly a feeling? Have you felt ugly? Is that a virtue or a vice? Why? If vanity is a vice, then is feeling ugly a virtue? Is beauty virtuous and ugliness the opposite, an indication of evil?

From Dictionary.com: ugly

adjective, uglier, ugliest.
1. very unattractive or unpleasant to look at; offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance.
2. disagreeable; unpleasant; objectionable:
ugly tricks; ugly discords.
3. morally revolting:
ugly crime.
4. threatening trouble or danger:
ugly symptoms.
5. mean; hostile; quarrelsome:
an ugly mood; an ugly frame of mind.
6. (especially of natural phenomena) unpleasant or dangerous:
ugly weather; an ugly sea.

I wrote the following poem before 2009, when I was thinking that there are people that I think are just beautiful, but it has nothing to do with surface beauty. It has to do with love and trust. The makeup books in the poem are Face Forward and Making Faces, by Kevin Aucion.

Beauty

Beauty is not on the surface in people

People that I love are beautiful to me
They shine
It doesn’t matter how they look
In fact, scars make them more real
More human
Intimacy is knowing what this scar is from
And that
Knowing their stories
That they trust me to tell me
People that I love are beautiful

I have been wearing makeup
I never cared before really
Until a book by an artist
Showed me his vision
The beauty that he sees in everyone
I call it my paint by numbers makeup book
Because he is a true artist
Who believes that art is for everyone
And so he includes instructions for each picture
So that I too can dabble in his art

I will wear makeup at my family summer lake
I do not think my family will approve
Nor do I think they will understand
They may comment
I will say that I am trying to catch a new man
This will confirm their disapproval
I will break the rules by wearing makeup
Which is exactly the point
But I am also celebrating beauty
The beauty that the Beloved sees
In everyone

 

I took the photograph in 2014 from a train….sometimes we talk about ugly weather, but watching the land and weather change from the train was glorious. I hope you feel beauty in your life.