Beauty

There are so many distractions in our lives these days. Walk down the street in a busy city and what will you see:  a man on a cell phone, a woman texting, a couple taking pictures with their new digital camera, someone tuning all those people out with his iPod. Do we ever stop to appreciate the things around us? Or have we all turned into zombies of technology, walking idly through our days.

Don't you think that being "connected" is really DISconnecting us from each other.  Why tell your best friend the important news in person if you can just do it via Skype. We're missing something here.  We're missing the whole point.  Face-to-face communication, interaction with other is destroying us at the very time it's trying to bring us together.  How? you may wonder. Well, think of it this way, if you weren't always "connected", what would you be doing? Would you read? Would you take a walk in the park or on the beach and marvel at nature's beauty? Would you meet up with a friend or a love and talk for hours- really talk, about life, about you, about them, and anything else in between. Think of how peaceful things would be to disconnect for a while and really connect with life. How would that make you feel?

This next week, try to disconnect for a while; for five minutes even, and take a look at something beautiful.  Think of all the possibilities that arise when you appreciate the things around us, without the technology. Think of how free you'll feel when you take a step back, and breathe.

The Mix Tape

Ever wonder how a simple mix tape can really turn simple songs that separately don't belong, but together, they become a story?  And even though they're really not called Mixed Tapes anymore because now we have iPods, iPads, and the like, we still consider them mixed tapes.

I used to make one every month, sometimes twice a month depending on the events that unfolded before me.  Making different playlists for boyfriends was always my specialty.  Each man in my life had a playlist, he had those songs that instantly gave you butterflies whenever one of the songs came on.  And then, when that man left you life, there was a consequential breakup mix that came along with him.  I still think of certain guys whenever I hear one of those breakup songs.

There were mixed tapes for going out, some for when you stayed in, rainy day mixes, and mixes for cleaning, or cooking.  You could really make a mixed tape for just about any event that you came across and then re-use them over again. 

Listening to those songs, told a story. A story of a certain part of our lives.  A part of our lives we can re-visit anytime we want, just by pressing play.  The lyrics, the music, everything about the list brings out such vivid details, it amazes me how powerful music really is. And that's beautiful.

"Where words fail, music speaks" - Hans Christian Andersen