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The Art of Seeing Beauty in the Everyday
It’s simple: Pay attention
I buy star lilies from an unassuming flower shop on Amsterdam just north of 73rd Street. They’re not expensive when you take into account how long they last. The buds are like pale green flames on a Bunsen burner. A few show a speck of petal, like chicks breaking through a shell. They peek out as they wait on the store’s plain wooden shelf for their promotion to a side table, a mantel, a desk.
I bring them home to a glass vase. Years ago I bought two pounds of river-smoothed black pebbles, each about an inch around. I keep them at the ready. I hold my two stalks of lilies upright in the middle of the vase, then slide handfuls of stones around them to create a foundation. They are elegant in their erect posture. Queens of the Lilies.
I add water and put them on the coffee table. I need to add water every day. A good sign. The buds are swelling, slower than the phases of the moon, but the water tells the tale. It’s lovely how a bud can begin the day shy and unremarkable, then shock us with an explosion of lily by evening. The buds open courageously, one after the other, the decapitated plant’s belief in everlasting life never wavering.
It is all mystery and confusion, like taking a window seat in a soon-to-depart…
