Since when did my parking lot become such a beautiful place ?

Maybe it was the contrast of having just gone through two days straight of gray skies and cold rain, but on the walk back to my car this afternoon, I was startled by the vibrant blue of the sky and the stark white of the clouds, framed in the foreground by the deep green of the pine trees. The play of the light and color stretched out in front of me literally brought me to a standstill, right there in the middle of a parking lot that I walk to and from five days a week.

I’ve had that experience before, of course–a kind of shift in perspective, when the ordinary is suddenly startling. I’m not sure words can really capture that subtle change in texture the occurs in the experience of the day, when I am actually seeing the beauty that is often right there in front of me, unnoticed.

On the drive home, I tried to be attentive to what I was seeing, but of course, my mind wandered onto countless other things….

And then, right in front of my home, I looked over the top of my roof and there it was again–light and shadow, a swirl of blue across a darkening sky, the play of beauty.

I am not sure it’s possible to sustain these moments, and perhaps that’s not the point. As long as I can be witness to them when they arrive, that is good enough for me.