Lately there haven’t been many moments lately that have caught my eye. I wish I could see all the beauty in the world. I need it. I need the beauty. We all do.

Lacee went inside but I didn’t budge. I felt the huge drops hit my face and began to submit myself to the sky. I had never just stood in the rain. I’d never let myself not run for shelter.

It started to get really cold, but I just leaned against the railing of the porch. I let the rain steal my heat; I let the rain clean my mind; I enjoyed the vacancy in my body.

My clothes were soaked, my hair was plastered to my head, and my teeth were chattering. Freezing in the rain was relaxing. Letting something else take over my body was beautiful.

So, I turned around and she had stopped in the parking lot and was reaching around to the bag hanging off her chair. “Would you help me? I think I left a bag in the checkout line.” So, I took the bag off the head rest happily, and showed her the contents. “Oh, I had two bags…I must have left the other one inside. *grunt*” I put the bag back on her head rest and began to head back to my cart. No sooner did I turn around did I hear, “OH! Here it is!” She had tied it to the side of the arm rest. “It’s that time, I suppose. Ya’ll had better be good to us – it’ll be your time soon, ya know!” I humored her and laughed, told her to have a good rest of her day, and headed back to my car smiling. 

I put my groceries in the car, still smiling, excited that I had a story to tell Lacee when I got home. I pulled out of the spot and stopped at the edge of the parking lot to turn onto the busy street. Right beside me I saw the woman in the wheelchair cruising along…with two (yes two) cigarettes in her mouth. I laughed to myself and pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the smoking wheelchair in my past, with an entertaining story to look forward to in my future. 

Connecting with people, in any way, touches me – just as I hope it touches everyone else. I learn, I laugh, I collect experiences and stories that have no monetary value, but I keep them all the same. That’s what we’re all here for, right? To socialize and grow and build communities and enrich the human race. Smiling, laughing, crying, thinking, questioning, and learning – that’s why I go where I go and do what I do. Experiencing my life instead of just living it… is beautiful.

I got to Lacee’s house yesterday while she was still at work. I gathered up all the dirty laundry (her’s and mine) and started to put a load in the washing machine. Mindless, productive tasks keep my mind at bay and my heart rate down when I’m stressed, however I do let my mind wander sometimes and yesterday found myself contemplating my age. I am twenty-one years old. I have lived on my own, I have signed leases, I have bought a car, I have dealt with insurance companies and repair shops and realtors. I’ve done grown-up things. I make my own money, I do my own grocery shopping, and I make my own decisions. 

When I switched the laundry from the washer to the dryer, I started thinking about my future; where I was going to live, what my life would look like a few years from now after I graduate with my Doctor of Pharmacy degree. Would Lacee and I own a house by then? Would we be in the market to buy a house? What about family planning? Pets? Would we dress the same? Who would our friends be? And for the first time, I realized that there was no real way of knowing. The only way to have any control over the picture I was trying to see was to appreciate everything that I have right now. 

I need to appreciate that I have Lacee, and that we both have roofs over our heads and food in our kitchens (however scarce). I need to be grateful for my education and the learning opportunities that I have. I may have a lot of health issues right now, but I am grateful to be alive. 

Finding a place in my mind to be presently grateful; allowing myself to stop for one moment in my day to think about what I have and what I want and what I deserve… is imperative. However unbearable and unpredictable life may seem at times, being grateful for all that I have… is beautiful.

 Sure, it sounds black-and-white-old-movie-esque to say that I fell in love at first sight, but it’s true. I did. And, so did she.

I can tell you the first few moments that I thought that I was in love, the moments where I felt like I was in love, and the moments where I knew that I was in love: every single moment involved her lips. The very first moment that she smiled at me, I tingled. She pulled up in her car next to mine and smiled. The only way I can describe how I feel would be to say that I turned into a puddle on my dashboard and car seat. I thought that this could be love. Fast-forward to kissing. I was laying underneath her shaddow and her warmth and our lips hovered for a moment a few breaths apart. We tasted each others breath. I felt like this could be love. Fast forward again to being apart for two days and getting a text message after hanging up the phone: “This is me two days after i met you telling you that i love you and can’t wait to love you more and more and more…” Imagining these words coming from her heart, through her lips convinced me, and I knew this was love.

Her lips and her mouth are beautiful. Our love is beautiful.

I was on the bus, going home, on Valentine’s Day a few days ago. I sat next to a nice woman and she began chatting with me. First about my phone, and then about other random things. She was very friendly and it’s not every day that the person you sit next to on the T in Boston starts up a friendly conversation with you.

This woman asked me something that no stranger had ever asked me. She was talking about Valentine’s day and asked me why I didn’t have any plans. This is how the conversation went:

Her: “You don’t have a– are you gay?”
Me: “Yes.”
Her: “You don’t have a girlfriend?”
Me: “Nah.”
Her: “Probably best. why deal with other people’s bullshit when you have your own to deal with?”
Me: *laugh* “You know what? No stranger has ever come out and just asked me, point blank, if I am gay.”
Her: “Well, I know it’s rude, but I wanna know. Doesn’t matter to me, I just don’t want to assume that you are or you aren’t and be wrong either way!”
Me: “No, I think it’s great. I wish more people were as okay with just asking that kind of question as you are – I think it’s important.”

Made me smile. The fact that she nonchallantly asked me about my sexual orientation when we had only known each other for less than five minutes was incredible. Being honest and straightforward is beautiful.

My dirty clothing pile had merited it’s own zip code, so I decided it was time to launder the filthy mess. I loaded it all up in my laundry bag and climbed down the flight of stairs to begin the trek to the laundry room. I managed to only have two loads of laundry, which equals three dollars. I came back in a half an hour and all of the dryers were either broken or taken. I only knew that the empty driers did not work because the elderly woman burning a hole in my back with her eyes, alerted me.

I decided that I would wait because her driers only had 17 minutes left and I didn’t think that going back to sit on my couch for a few minutes was worthwhile. Immediately, this woman began talking to me.

I learned her entire story; where she was born, where she’s lived, the nature of her life’s work, what her mother used to cook for her, where she had each of her children, the names of her grand children and their children, all of the people who are presently dead or alive in her life, and many other little facts. This woman was born and raised in Alabama and moved to Boston in the 60′s. She is 71 years old and stopped working two summers ago. She still had her Alabama accent and that wonderful southern way of telling a story. Her life could be a movie. I couldn’t stop smiling.

I was so impressed that I was able to learn this woman’s life story in the 17 minutes it took her laundry to dry. I can honestly say that I have always wanted to meet a stranger (and I always imagined it someone completely different than myself) and learn all about them, and never see them again. Her name is Dotty. She made me smile, she enriched my life – she might not know what those 17 minutes meant to me, but I will never know what they meant to her either. Two lives can connect for a moment and mean a million, while we all have relationships that linger for years and bring us nothing at all.

Those 17 minutes were beautiful. Being given the time to listen to learn about a total strangers life is beautiful.

By the time I have a good handful of entries in this blog, I am going to loathe the word ‘beautiful’ and it might begin to lose any value that I have ever attached to it. I hope that doesn’t happen, but the optimistic pessimist that crawls underneath my skin won’t let me think otherwise.

I call this a stretch: my beautiful moment came today while I was sitting on the subway coming home from work. It was cramped and uncomfortable and smelled like piss and body odor. People looked exhausted and overworked and worried about the money they wish they had. People were blasting music in headphones on the other side of the train, and I was able to hum along. The woman to the left of me had a rough smokers voice and smokers hands but the body of a 13 year old girl. The boy to the right of me was very skinny so he didn’t hinder my sitting space, but he did keep hitting me with his skateboard.

I took a book out of my backpack and began reading where I had left off. The book that I pulled out was Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. He is the author of The Tipping Point and I have been meaning to read that. This was on the 20% off new paperbacks rack at Barnes & Noble and I was in need of a new book. I digress…

I am still only 30 or so pages into the book, but introductions always seem to be my favorite part. The irony here is that the beginning of this book discusses how the snap judgements that we make are usually, if not always, more accurate than when we take a long time to thoroughly investigate something and then make a judgement call. They define these two different techniques as “thin-slicing” and “thick-slicing”, respectively. Ok, back to the train ride…

The beautiful moment that arose from all of this, in the midst of my shit-day, was when I realized something – something that I had always known but never recognized: I am good at snap-judgements. I have an excellent reaction time; I pick things up not after they occur, but during. There are always exceptions, but reading this book brought attention to something crucial about myself. It was as if I connected intimately with the author through time and space and medium; this book was reading me for a few sentences here and there while I was reading it. The way that written word can affect the psyche if beautiful. That moment, during my awful day, where I was physically exhausted and uncomfortable, my body ached not for sleep but to continue engaging in this book. That positive ache, is beautiful.

Savannah, or (as we call her) Boopie, came to visit Boston once this year and got to ride on the subway. She was so excited and would not stop talking about it. The pure and unadulterated excitement shines off her cute little cheeks clearer than I’ve ever seen on any child’s face. 

I occasionally videochat with my mom and siblings. I got to see Boopie tonight via webcam.

Tonight, I asked her: “When are you going to come visit me?”
She replied: “Umm…Monday!”
My mother interjected and asked if I would really like to take her for a weekend. They live about 3 hours and a boat ride away, so it would have to be well planned out. Mom and her husband, Boopie’s father, want to take a trip to Florida to see my grandmother. Why not leave Boopie at Sissy’s?!
So, with this news Boopie started jumping around and yelling, “yay! yay! yay!”
I told her: “Boopie…when you get here, we can go on the train!”
She immediately ran to her father and exclaimed: “DAD! When I go stay with Sissy, I get to go on the train!”

She ran back to the computer and looked right into the camera. This moment, when she smiled and tried to really look at me through the screen, was beautiful. Her shining, unadulterated excitement is beautiful. I hope she never loses that – and if she does, I hope that she finds it and holds on tight.

This morning, the two baristas were having a discussion. I didn’t notice when it began, but I picked up somewhere towards the beginning. They were discussing whether or not taking mood stabilizing medication was a choice or not. Now, I would love to interject and splatter my own opinion all over this entry, but I will refrain and just mention that the two of them were on two very different sides of the conversation. Still, they both kept their calm and discussed their opinions in a calm tone, not interrupting one another and ending the discussion before it turned into a full-blown fight. 

Personally, I would have gotten my panties in a twist and stood on my soap box and shot the other person down. No one has the right to demean what I do to take care of myself. 

This morning, I realized that the way that I instinctually react is dangerous. I need to calmly and rationally collect my thoughts and convey them in a respectful manner. Passion is important, but exploding all the time is not. 

The ability to discuss/argue and not yell at one another is beautiful. That moment this morning that I witnessed, was beautiful.