Ordinary Beauty | Life Love and Hiccups: Ordinary Beauty
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Tuesday 31 March 2015

Ordinary Beauty

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How often do you stop and take in all the ordinary beauty that is all around us?

It’s OK - I am happy to wait for your eyes to stop rolling because believe me when I say how I know that sounds like such a stale old cliche. 

But as much as you or I may hate to admit it, there is a bloody good reason that cliche hangs around and that is because there is a whole lotta eye rolling truth to it. 

I'll be the first to confess that I don't stop and appreciate it enough. I'm also pretty sure I am not the only horse with her blinkers on.

From the moment we wake up, our minds do a mental run through of what we have on for the day. 

We get up and get ready for work or for whatever we have on. Maybe throw in a handful of kids to be fed and dressed for kindy or school, some errands to run, a to do list to work through, taxi duties and perhaps even a few half assed thoughts about dinner  - and is it any wonder we switch into auto pilot and move almost mechanically through the motions?

Yesterday morning, somewhere between school drop off and a Drs appointment I found myself with 30 minutes to spare. 

Now normally, I would race home and put some washing on, answer a couple of emails or maybe pop into the shops to frivolously spend some money on spontaneous purchases pick something up for dinner.

But this morning was different. 

This particular morning as I drove home from the school run, I turned left instead of right and found myself pulling into the car park at the beach.

I slipped off the shoes and wandered down to the edge of the water where I stood and inhaled that familiar salty air. I listened and I watched and for the first time in a long time I noticed just how God damn beautiful this world is and how grateful I am to be here.

I was standing on the same beach I have stood on since I was a little girl, tasted the same salty spray on my lips that the little me used to taste and I was mesmerised by the very same ocean that has been there my whole darn life. 

It is always there, only I have been too busy not noticing it to appreciate it.

The rest of the day was unremarkable as such, you know just a normal day doing normal stuff, but that feeling of awareness I had on the beach that morning stayed with me throughout the day. 

My senses were all hyper like a kid after a can of Coke and unlike the day before, or most days really, I began to notice more of the beauty within the normal every day stuff around me.

Little things like the cool water on my fingers when I was rinsing dishes, the steam and wafting aroma from my mug of coffee and the clanging of dinner dishes and laughter breezing through the window from the people next door.

All of that was there yesterday, and the day before and the day before that.

I just didn't notice it.

30 short minutes (give or take) on the beach that morning had somehow resulted in me stopping and being rather than rushing and doing. 

A new sense of gratitude that lingered throughout the rest of the day and somehow managed to paint every . single . mundane moment with fresh colour.

It got me thinking - what if I started every day like this? 

What if we all did?

What if we made a point of looking for the beauty that exists in our every day and more than that... we gave ourselves permission to just stop and enjoy it for a while and allow the gratitude to take over?


After all, what is the point of being here in this beautiful world if we don't stop and let its beauty consume us every now and then.

When was the last time you noticed the beautiful in the ordinary?
Do you ever have these kind of eye opening epiphanies?
Did you roll your eyes at the cliche like I kinda did writing it?


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