A friend declared that she is going to look for beauty every day for four years. That is 1461 mornings, traipsing around in the fields, or hunting for the last red leaf in November, or the first snowdrop in the spring. Or the third. Which is just as lovely. It is an attentive eye looking, even expecting, to unearth the kindness of a stranger, or a smile in a bumping throng of people late for work. It is the pause in an otherwise ugly day, when she will choose to believe that beauty is within reach.  

And she will find it. 

We find things we are looking for. Whether it is our keys, or the phone charger, or the number for the insurance agent. We look. We find. 

There are not many times when we shrug our shoulders and give up before an effort. 

"Well, I had my keys yesterday, but now they are not in my pocket. I guess they no longer exist."

The other day I was outside with my preschoolers, and called them to go back inside. Their mothers were coming to fetch them. There were hula hoops to collect, and buckets to toss back in the sandbox. Then I noticed. 

A little girl with curly red hair had her small face not ten inches from the unshod foot of a little boy. She was intent on getting his shoe back on. He was enjoying the attention. 

It has been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But I disagree. Beauty is everywhere, long before I came along. 

As long as I stay inside the box that is my head I cannot see much that is gracious. The same old rants and opinions rattle around like broken glass in an unopened gift of crystal that was dropped on the sidewalk.

But there is a wide sky out there waiting for me.