Beauty

*Most links throughout are photos. I recommend indulging if you have the time.

Brian and I were having a rather interesting comment conversation spurred by the text of his entry here .

The conversation is really one of aesthetics, particularly as it relates to natural beauty/a landscape. It's an interesting conversation if you ask me, and one that's equally valid in other arenas, but that's not the point.

It grew out of me defending the beauty of Texas (typical, haha) but really brings up questions on a larger scale for me.

Do you find the place where you were raised - or that which you strongly affiliate with home - beautiful? I don't necessarily mean the town (I was raised in the terrible suburb of Arlington), but more or less the place you affiliate with most strongly. For me, that is Texas - for Brian, more or less Colorado - for you it might be a town, a region, a state, a country, whatever. But do you find that place more beautiful - in some deep sense - than elsewhere?

I love the mountains - love them. The stunning beauty of the Kluanes in the Yukon will always be unforgettable, the glimpse of Denali, Mt. Rainier hundreds of miles away from a side road in Washington through the trees, Mt. Hood from Portland, the mountains of Tahoe, the Sierra Nevada, the Sangre de Cristos, the Chisos of South Texas and the Davis Mountains near Big Bend. They are all burnt on my brain like an iron, I will never forget them. For some reason the Rockies (of Colorado) never quite hit me like that - I venture it was probably the experience I had with them, but that's not the point. The point is - I have loved, and always will love the mountains - I'd be happy, so happy to call those beauties of Northern New Mexico home, in a way.

But Texas has this pull - I guess it's hard to describe to someone who is not a native Texan, but I've never met one of the brood that didn't feel it really. When you leave, you have this desperate need to go back, like you're missing a part of yourself. Even if you take years to admit it (which many people do), it always comes up. And when you are gone you can't help but think of all those things that make Texas what it is. And for me, that's often the landscape.

I guess it's hard to describe to someone raised elsewhere, as perhaps it isn't so aesthetically pleasing, so universally loved or stunning as the mountains are to most people. There are parts (Big Bend) that I think all of you would agree on: beautiful. But other parts, perhaps, are more understated.

Ultimately, I have a hard time not finding most natural places beautiful, in their own way. I remember thinking Northern New Mexico and Arizona would never end on the ride. It all looks more or less the same, believe me, it is flat (but not that flat, really, what a bitch) and red and heinously hot and dusty. But what a fucking postcard that shit makes, what a picture - how stupidly unique it all is, in it's absurdness.

And places like Indiana - this is in Indiana. And Nevada. Lots of people on the trip hated Nevada - thought it was ugly. I couldn't get enough.

So maybe this is just me answering a rhetorical question I seem to answer often these days. I'm a woman of the earth, of the natural things, of wide open space and echoing canyons, of solitude and silence. I can think of a thousand ugly human-made things, but I can't think of one place I've been where I can really, totally, say: that was ugly.

Perhaps this further proves my idealism, that romantic streak that I think it will be quite difficult to ever purge myself of (not that I would ever want to).

So, friends, what places are most beautiful to you? Home of the roots, home of the friends, home of the heart, home of the just-for-right-now, not home at all?

Let me say also, this is not a passing of judgment (hardly, as that would be pointless) but more a conversation of how great and varied we are as humans, how we can be in the same space and see it all so differently. How we are each equipped with different skills and visions, different ways of viewing the world. And I think that's pretty fucking awesome.

Also, I keep forgetting to mention - I now have a full account. Joined the ranks!

Backblip(frip)pery:

Sunday - Cowboy Cookies
Monday - Lion(s)