Beautiful Places

The rain broke late yesterday, leaving the roads mostly dry this morning save the occasional puddle. I topped off oil and sprayed a little chain lube and was out the door with the sun hanging low in the sky. No place to go, no destination, just exploring the world today hoping to run into experiences along the way.

As I moved through my ride east, then south, then east again, zig-zagging across patches of big-city metropolis interspersed with the occasional park or other green space, I started to notice the raw beauty of the 'tucked away' places. A large oak tree tucked under a bridge that has somehow survived the merciless tree trimming of city officials. A quiet meadow beneath the growing growls of traffic on the six-lane slab above. A still pond teaming with life jammed between two city lots. On and on, examples of life squeezed into the mayhem of what everybody actually calls 'life'.

Beauty is a funny thing. 

Raw beauty, a sweeping mountainscape with snow-capped peaks running off into the distance, is easy for anybody to appreciate. It's there. It's huge. It is what it is. But "subtle beauty"... you know - the soft kind that comes to you as much as a feeling as it does a place or person or thing in your view ... that almost seems worth something more.