Unseen Beauty: A Journal

Needs

We walk from day to day. We look ahead of our feet in hopes of seeing the obstacles before we trip. We look at those around us to judge how we are impacting them, how we should behave. We look within our hearts to determine what we need to do for our own moral conscience and inner peace.

More often than not, we are so busy looking that we do not take the time to pause and see.

There is a blue sky over our heads, filled with colors that shift and churn, hinting at wonders that only eyes looking upward will allow us to dream. There are tiny miracles, creatures who have not yet learned the habit of the constant search, of always looking for something – children, plants, pets – in whose unstinting joy we may find hope and comfort. There are wonders, things of beauty, things so ridiculous that we cannot help but laugh.

But if we do not pause to see, we will be forever looking. We cannot find what we seek simply by focusing on what the world tells us we need.

I struggle every day with the darkness, with the need to be needed. I watch the ground at my feet, afraid to make a mistake, afraid I will not be perfect, afraid someone will see. I study the faces of those around me, looking for approval, looking to be needed, looking to see if I am being judged. It is only in the moments when I stand still, when I dare to turn my eyes away from my own path and to see that I find the light I so desperately need.

The world may think me mad when I stand still in the middle of the workday crowd and watch the hawks fly or the Spanish moss sway, but I am surviving. I must see without looking and let my soul feed upon the beauty that bears no thumbprint of human practicality. If I do not, my spirit crumbles and dies, and I go with it into the abyss.