I spent the last few days in my hometown. I never knew how beautiful it was until I went out west for a summer, and then I came back in early August when river was shining a bright-blue-hue passing through downtown. I went out to the lookout where you can count the city blocks and see all the way down 2nd street, and my sister and I and a friend I met in Yellowstone waded in the bright orange sunset for a while.
Later, I’d come home for Thanksgiving and see the sticks and the grey grass begging for a blanket of snow. Sometimes I still thought it was beautiful, like when I would drive across the river with the windows down and everything blurred into something I could redefine.
‘beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.’ – david hume
I’ve been seeing things differently lately. I think I finally got sick of my teenage angst, and now everything I see I write down in a little black journal because I just can’t bear to forget it. The couch on the side of the road that’s plaid and soaked in thunderstorms, the bunnies that always leap across the sidewalk (but only when I’m with him), the lyrics of the song playing over the speakers, the taste of lemonade, and lemon bars, and lemon-blueberry mascarpone cake.
I think going out west changed me the way a high-school graduation or a 20th birthday changes someone. Now I enjoy country music a lot more than I used to, and I can sit with my own thoughts for longer than 3 minutes. Maybe somethings are controversially beautiful, but I am still looking for something I can’t find a bit of perfection in. Today, I listen to country music and contemplate the controversial nature of music-taste and preference and perspective.
Feral in the barrel 