Fortune Cookie Friday: Beauty in the Ordinary

When walking through the botanical gardens, you may gaze upon a colorful orchid or lily and find wonder in its beauty; the symmetry of the petals may give you the sense of balance. I suggest you should not stop there. Today’s fortune reminds me that there is beauty even in the ordinary.

Those flowers may have extraordinary colors and shapes, but what about the leaves. Many plants have ornate leaves, but even the plain ones can fascinate. Take a moment and closely look at veins of each leaf, and their intricacy. Turn the leaf over and look at the bottom, which may reveal colors and surfaces that you did not expect.

Some of my friends call me quirky because I have a tendency to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Even as I sit writing this, the nooks and crannies of my English muffin fascinate me. The peaks and valleys that form from air bubbles during baking only revealed when you slice it in half.

Items like this might not seem attractive, but the beauty in their creation calls to me, this why I love to draw. I find comfort in breaking things down into shapes and patterns, and discovering why they are that way.

Everyone should stop and look at things from a different angle, get a different perspective. We can look at things closer than normal to see small details we overlook in our lives, or step back and envision the patterns from a distance. I like to people watch, and found that crowds can move just like a school of fish or a murmuration of starlings; they ebb and flow to avoid objects and each other as they travel. The flow of traffic in our busy cities is reminiscent of the fluids in our veins, transporting people to their destinations.

So, each day when you wake up, don’t just open your eyes; SEE.