Surrounded By Beauty

I used to live in San Diego, California, quite possibly one of the most beautiful places in the world and without question the most beautiful place I have ever lived.  My life then was lazy and chaotic, rocking Uggs and flip flops, exploring mountains and deserts and beaches.  But the most central part of my casual life in SoCal was without question documenting that beauty as I experienced it, because I knew it wasn't going to last forever.

I used to take the 101 down the coast to my evening classes at San Diego State just so I could watch the sun set as I sat in traffic.  Might as well, huh?  I used to duck under the pier in OB and dodge the many smelly homeless people to wander the rocks and take photographs with my first quality camera, a little Canon Elph digital that fit in my pocket.  My days ended like this:

(these photos are 100% unedited and taken with a regular old digital camera)

 and my biggest problem was making it to the coast before sunset when the days got shorter.  Beauty everywhere I looked.

Now I live in Vermont: pretty, yes, but to me, it doesn't hold a candle to my old daily vistas.  Yes, there was traffic but here we are sidelined by snowstorms.  It was completely overcrowded but it made the city feel alive; here no one knows you're alive unless you make them.

Part of me thinks I'm meant for sunsets rather than sunrises, for freeways rather than dirt roads.  For moments when I felt like there was nothing more beautiful than what I was seeing right now. 

But wait.  IS there anything more beautiful than what I have right now?  I look at my children and consider that I'm surrounded by beauty every day.  Ever-changing, ever-impressive, ever heartstring-pulling.  I can't compare the two.

Look at my daily beauty now.

My baby girl, sitting in the soft glow of a Vermont sunset, looking as pretty in pink as could be. 

Lovelier than any vista I've ever seen.

So I guess I have no right to complain.  I've been surrounded by beauty wherever I've gone, in different shapes and different shades and with different views, but beautiful nonetheless.

And the sun does set here, too, you know.

Some kind of lucky.