Capture It

It's been such a long time since I really flexed my writing muscles. I'm slowly unfurling that part of my mind from where it's been cramped and squished into a corner of my brain.

I'm stretched across my bed, occupied in watching the sky through my window. If I stare long enough I can almost fool myself that there isn't really a pane of glass. That there's in fact nothing separating me from the beauty of the outside world. Yet, I can't believe it. You see, the air is distinctly 'inside air'; still and lifeless. Outside, air flicks about you in little whips and flurries. With outside air, every breath is a tiny delight as the freshness rushes into you, waking you from inside out. And that's not how the air in my room feels.

Just so you know, the sky I'm seeing, and am more than a little captivated by is white, a brilliant white, and the clouds are great grey smudges. Curiously, they're not ugly smears, but soft and lovely; dark at the centre then fading and blending at the edges into lightness. They're drifting right now, slowly and almost solemnly from left to right. They don't look quite ready to release their rain. But I can imagine that later in the day, a stranger will curse at the same clouds for depositing a whole lot on him. Or perhaps he will lift up his arms and receive the raindrops as a gift. His choice.

Was there a point to all this writing?
Not particularly. But as I let my little chewed biro scrawl across my favourite notebook, I had a good think. And I decided that if there has to be a point, then that point is beauty. We experience beauty and then we want to capture it. Some people paint and draw, but that has never been a talent of mine, not even a little bit. I could simply take a photo of the view, but then I wouldn't be able to share the full, layered beauty of this exact moment. Because the beauty is not only in the gloriousness of the sky, but in so many other things too. The way the light gleams across my mirror and reveals that it's actually speckled with smudges, from top to toe. Or the empty mug beside me, around which the faintest wisp of 'tea smell' lingers. Or the curious mixture of sounds that is my ipod on shuffle. Or the quiet nagging ache in my elbows from leaning too long on them whilst writing this. Or suddenly, in the midst of everything, realising that I've dumped a pile of freshly ironed clothes on the floor where they're merely going to become creased again.

This is being alive. And I'm just trying to catch an inch of it with words.
All that beauty.