Week 2.51: New Beauty

Let me first start with a secret confession: I think this photo is breathtaking.

I don't think all of my photos are...but this one pulls at my heart.

I took Week 2.51: New Beauty in Athens, Georgia last autumn. My favorite time of year. With one of my favorite friends, The Georgia Peach. Doing a favorite thing: breakfast and coffee.

I was enjoying the season I've loved all my life with a friend from college years. We met in our late teens and found ourselves sitting there in our 30's. We were doing something we had done hundreds of times before and will probably do many more times. The leaves were finished, mingled with crushed chalk, never to be used again. In some ways, things were forever over. And in other ways, some New Beauty was unfurling.

In the last few months of my life I have been feeling this New Beauty creeping in. In all reality, sometimes it crashes in, and I feel that drowning is a very real possibility. Then a ray of light, a twinge of the heart, a well-timed word, a past memory pushes me onward and upward into the destiny I've been granted.

My dear dad tells me that in the last few months he's seen me take my own blog's advice on a regular basis. That's a pretty high compliment from someone who knows me well.

It's one thing to say something; it's quite another to do the thing. A tall order. But I'm a tall girl.

Anyway, my goal hasn't changed; it's been refined and sharpened. It's cut me. It's shone with brilliance. It's challenged me and called me out. It's broken my heart and given it new reasons to beat. It's been a constant. Yes, I've found New Beauty and I plan on chasing it for as long as there is breath in me.