Connecting The Dots

I finally stopped yesterday and I took a break. I know I have been gone from the blog scene for ever and a day. I appreciate seeing my inbox full with all your emails wondering if some tornado or health issue has ripped apart my life. Not so. However it did feel like all hell was breaking loose for a full, solid month.

Yesterday morning I was in Chattanooga a bit too early to get my food shopping done; I know not to show up first thing at the market before the produce folks have fully stocked their bins. So I stopped to have a cappuccino.

I had it at the Mean Mug, a coffee house in the heart of Chattanooga,close to the station with the Chattanooga choo-choo that we all have grown up hearing about in that song (for a blast from the past, click on that link). That part of town has that undercurrent type of artistic pulse that you can feel in your soul. The shops are tucked in, here and there, down streets that could use a repaving. They are a little hard to find, but once you do, you know you have found a gem. It is a little like antique store hunting. Once you find those gems, they get permanently ingrained in your memory. I seem to have an internal GPS for places like this.

The pubs and restaurants seem to have an uncanny ability to find chalkboard artists that really payed attention in penmanship class.

The decor is always a bit offbeat, not quite polished - almost as if on purpose...

just unpolished enough so that you feel like you have something in common with it. You; your body, your personality, your history - all of it, not quite perfect, not quite polished, but honest, creative and good to the core, both in principle and in action.

It was there that I decided to finally take a break. With me, I had my latest book purchase, The Forest Unseen, A Year's Watch In Nature. It is a book written by a professor of biology of his discoveries watching a very small patch of earth in the mountains, here, not far from my home in Tennessee. Look for it on the link, under "Outdoors", if you like Walden Pond by Thoreau, you will like this book. It is a modern day version that will make you look differently at your own slice of the world.

It was a good place (and time) to stop and connect the dots. I have been going ... and going... like crazy since I got back from my second trip. I know you are saying, "What trip?". I went out of the country, again, I had so much to share and so many photos to cull through that it all became overwhelming. I just couldn't get it together enough to blog. Life took over, on over drive, and things just fast forwarded until right now. When I stopped to look at the past few weeks, it was a long list that I had been swamped with.

For the most part, the long list consisted of all things motherly. A highlight was seeing my oldest, Nica, in a couple of performances.

The "low" light, and I mean to say VERY low light, had to do with all the pollen we have been cloaked in. This little bit is from a 15 square foot area in the porch.Two days after having swept it all clean, I had to do it all over again.

My youngest, Laela, is now on allergy shots.

What that means is that instead of five hours of daily driving, I am now, twice a week, doing seven so that she can get shots at an allergy specialist. I am looking at it from the perspective of seven hours of driving vs. my precious daughter breathing. It is an easy choice, though a very exhausting task. You know that I will be shouting for joy when the school year ends in May.

All this brings me to the thing I want to tell you most. Beauty is everywhere I look, even on days when I am bogged down with a heavy handed "must-do" list for the day. I can look back on my days by connecting the dots in terms of things I accomplished - like an endless checklist of dots that connect like a never ending "DNA twist", or I can can take a different tack. I want that "DNA twist" to give me life, not rob me of it. So rather than the dots being tasks that were accomplished, I want those dots to represent connections I made with other people. Privately, I will be keeping a "connect-the-dots list" of connections I have made with people. You, for example.

I want the common thread to be beauty. Beauty like these blossoms of the Mountain Laurel all over the mountain, opening now in it's own time, on the second and third weeks of May, in a cycle of it's own.

I am going to keep a log of how and when I have connected, and with whom, when the beauty factor was present and also was the overriding factor to notice. After a while, I hope I can look back and connect the dots, of beauty, if you will, and see if it is a better assessment of my life - a more true one, one with more lasting power.

So where do you come in? Ideally I would have all of you blogging, but I know that is a lot to wish for. If you have been on the fence about starting a blog, go for it, just post things to do with beauty until your own voice bubbles to the surface. Blogging is a way, though, that I can see the beauty you have to share. Some of you see my blog on Facebook, although I "get it", Facebook is hard to keep up with. I miss one day, and I may have missed your "beauty moment." If you have something beautiful to share, let me know in the "Comments" section at the end of my posts whenever you feel like it. If you want me to link it in to a post so others can see, I will do that. If you want to keep it just between us - no problem, I can see it via email. Either way, this life is a pretty difficult one, and recording the moments of beauty is well worth my time. Hope you feel like sharing with me.

Below is a quick video I shot while on my hike on Thursday. Some of you might think it is not that exciting, but I think there is beauty in it for you to see and hear.

Hoping to fill my "Beauty Book",

your friend,

Carolina

   

 

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I love your idea for the beauty connection! I'll try my best to help you connect more dots. I love wandering around actually looking up. I notice a lot of people walk around staring at phones or looking constantly troubled, instead of looking around at the beauty around them. when I look up, I love seeing the sun shinning through leaves, and seeing delicate webs or dust particles floating. Subtle beauty like the makes me happy.

I hope you do share pictures from your tip, I be they are amazing.

Don't go away for so long next time :)

[Elizabeth]

Oh, I forgot to mention I do have a board on Pinterest that is called "Beauty" http://pinterest.com/4gossamerwings/

[The Muse of The Day]

Talk about BEAUTY!!!!!
Your Pinterest board is entirely composed of beauty - I should know, I woke up to your comment about it and have spent the past hour engulfed in beauty. I appreciate all the links, too. Many folks on Pinterest don't always put the links on there. I was able to hop from one beautiful thing to another. I can't thank you enough. It was the perfect way to start my Sunday. MASSIVE hags to you! It was like opening the perfect gift.
Carolina

[Brenda Ferguson]

Dear Carolina,
I truly believe that life is meant to be easy...in each moment, we can choose to let go of the struggle...and flow. Every time I step to my easel, my intent is to capture the unique beauty around me as I see it, whatever the subject may be... and my purpose is joy.
I hope to be one of the dots in your human connection...because THAT is beautiful.
http://brendaferguson.blogspot.com/

[Elizabeth]

I kinda thought you might love it :) I find it very interesting to look at other peoples Pinterest boards at a glance and see how it looks. It really shows what the person is drawn to in their life.
Nicole told me ages ago to put a mood board together to get a feel of what your look and style is about. Right after she told me this, I signed up for Pinterest and started pinning away. Next thing I knew, I could see clearly what colors I was drawn to and style.

Pinterest relaxes me, and I love where some of the pins take me to.

[Melissa P]

Beauty does surround us. Even in places we don't expect to find it--and that includes our ordinary, every day lives. Silly humans, we trample on beauty trudging our way to the top, only to look back and discover it was right under our feet.

I always enjoy sharing beauty with you because you respond so positively, each and every time. I'm so glad we're connected.

[Eva]

I'm glad you had some time to take a break! Thank you for this beautiful post! That café looks great! It's not so easy to find something like that around here.

I'm sorry your daughter struggles with allergies, but hope with the shots it's all under control!

Here, we have had finally some sunny days. Now I'm waiting impatiently for the first little leaves showing themselves on the trees. It's still been too cold for nature around here to burst into spring. When it does, I'll let you know! :-)

[Gwendolyn Acuna]

I'm so glad to see you are back on the blog, I really missed it. I wish tia Elaine could see it, she would love it. (She always asks about you, by the way). Your pictures of the mountain laurel were incredible, unreal!! And I would love to go with you to that neat Cafe someday. I'll be looking forward to more of the same:).
I love you.
Mom

[Mari]

Nice to have you back! I have exiting news to tell you - I made the bread! Everybody loved it - our 9 months old baby included. You should have seen the little fists going up and down when he loudly demanded a second piece :) Only 9 months old and he could already taste the difference compared to the normal stuff!

[The Muse of The Day]

Yay!!!! I am so happy that you told me about it, Mari! And even happier that it turned out well for you and that you and your family loved it. My family loves it too. I honestly think, now that I have made it 20 times or so, that it is a brainless recipe yet it makes better bread than all the others I have made before. Can I ask you one question? Did it help having all the pictures in my post? I really debated making a watercolor card, like I do with other recipes, but thought it might be easier to understand if there were pictures. Was it worth my washing my hands a million times over so I could handle my camera without getting flour and dough all over it? Let me know.
Carolina

[Mari]

The pictures where very helpful! Thank you for taking the time to take them and washing your hands for us! For starters I would have not added enough water to the mix if I have not seen the pictures of your dough. It was also very reassuring to see the dough looking the same as yours after waitin 15 hours for it to rise.