Welcome Showers

It finally rained today, after weeks of brutal heat and forehead wrinkling brightness. And though I harbor a nagging guilt about being too busy to do anything productive at Swoon, and despite the fact that I’ve been tagged for a really neat meme by Leah (don’t worry, I will do it, it’s just my sort of thing), I can’t desire anything but a couple of hours on my porch stoop, enjoying the shift in weather.

My general neglect of Swoon (and to a certain extent, this blog) is only due to being overwhelmingly busy preparing for our first Rock n Romp next weekend, and a general absent-mindedness thanks to over-scheduling. I sit down to write or share and end up spending an hour on YouTube or chatting with someone to distract myself from accomplishing anything worthwhile. I suppose that’s a cycle to be expected.

So today, I have nothing concrete or mandatory that I have to do, anything that strikes my fancy is up for grabs, and I plan to enjoy my ability to not do anything by starting my evening on the porch, watching the rain wash down the side street into the gutter, and the late afternoon sun become over-powered by grey.

It’s sort of fucking beautiful. What do you think is beautiful?

*photo by lars langemeier

1. That photo is amazing
2. The ability to skillfully neglect is a very important one.

rain is something i never thought i’d consider beautiful, but you’re right, it makes a day now.

other beautifuls - a box full of records that nobody has gone through, and a table full of real food.

Right now I’m sitting on my bed, my son asleep beside me, his Elmo beside him; the dog asleep on the floor, the husband watching golf with the sound off. I think I will go to sleep too…

Beautiful is something that I see and want to see more of, to look both broader and deeper and experience it in the gestalt.

A lot of beauty to me is math and systems and answers to many questions; solutions to generalized problem sets. But it’s also in quiet and patterns - like rain - only just barely ordered.

Beauty is also in the eyes and smile of someone who is looking at yours and thinking they’re beautiful as well.

Beauty is the sound of my son during a particularly bubbly round of his famous belly giggle. It can melt a bad day away in seconds.

[…] Leah from Partially Insane started this meme. She tagged Paige, whom I assume was planning on tagging me *wink*, so… i’ll do my list now. Mkay? The best musical moments from cinematic history, as judged by me, at least the ones I could think of off hand. […]