Tag Archives: beauty

Daily Prompt: Create 

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Create. I pondered on this word and realized this should make any creative, thinking human feel humble. We try to “create” beautiful things, useful things, amazing things, but what we create can never surpass nature. 

Nature’s beauty and design are beyond amazing. 


Have an amazing Saturday!
T. 💕
Daily Prompt: Create

Focus on the Ephemeral 

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Just like I don’t have the confidence to call myself a writer, I cannot ever call myself a photographer. But I enjoy writing and taking pictures among other things that introverts like myself enjoy doing.

When I take photos, I try to make them look the same way I see them with my own eyes. And to me it can be very difficult sometimes because first, my hands aren’t very steady; second, I do not know much about lighting and that kind of stuff; and third, I just use either my iPhone or my iPad to take pictures.

One time while I was walking with a friend, I stopped to take pictures of flowers, and he shook his head and asked, “Why do you take pictures?”

Good question. That time I only said because I like doing so. But having thought about it, I think I now know the answer.

Perhaps subconsciously it is an attempt on my part to capture moments that are simply that — moments, ephemeral, temporary. There may be flowers and leaves and trees everywhere, but as Robert Burns said, “And this same flower that smiles today, / Tomorrow will be dying.”

They may look the same, but it’s not the same flower, not the same moment, not the same minute.

Every photograph is a record not only of the subject (flower, leaf, sunset, or ocean) but also of a certain ME, at a certain time, at a certain place with a certain person. Everything we do leads us somewhere. We are always changing. Everything around us changes. As Heraclitus famously said, “No man can ever step in the same river twice.”

You can’t record every minute of your life. But you can keep photographs of certain moments of it.

Have a lovely week!
T.💕

Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus

“Gather ye rosebuds…” (WPC: Evanescent)

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Nothing symbolizes the evanescence of life more than a beautiful flower.  Life has its beauty and its fragility, reasons we value what little time we have. The beauty of a flower is as ephemeral as its short life.

Evanescent. Ephemeral.

The only way to deal with the evanescence of life is to enjoy every minute of it.

Carpe diem. 

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To the Virgins,  to Make Much of time 
By Robert Herrick 
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Evanescent 

For Women (who like to laugh) Only

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May 20th is a commercial festival for lovers in China. You may ask what that is. Like Singles’ Day (11/11) which is an unofficial festival to celebrate being single (1=single),  May 20th (or 5/20) is considered lovers’ day because the Mandarin for 5-2-0 (wu er ling) sounds close to “wo ai ni” which is Mandarin for “I love you.” I know. It’s just a reason to go shopping which seems to be  young Chinese people’s favorite pastime.

I’ve heard several young Chinese talking about this day, and somehow I was reminded of a conversation I had with a twenty-something friend where she lamented her boyfriend-less situation and how difficult it was to find Mr. Right. I wasn’t very sympathetic with her because it isn’t actually that difficult for a young woman like her who is tall, attractive, well-traveled and smart. In fact, lots of young men from her university like her, but as she says, “They’re not handsome nor smart enough.”

That’s the real problem: she’s waiting to meet someone who is handsome AND smart! In this area, she isn’t so smart.

I think there are only four kinds of men according to how realistic women view them for their looks and smartness:

  1. The BBC-DOCUMENTARY type. This is the kind of man you can listen to for hours. He can talk about a variety of subjects, and you just feel you are growing in intelligence just by listening. Never mind what he looks like! You don’t have to sit facing each other over a cup of coffee; you can just walk next to him and talk and listen and walk and talk and listen. That can be romantic too. 

  2. The TOO-HOT-TO-LISTEN-TO type. This man is your multivitamins for the eyes. Just looking at his handsome face makes you smile. Never mind if he’s telling a tragic story about the death of his dog, you don’t hear it because your mind is somewhere else with him where he’s not talking. It doesn’t matter if that mouth is  spewing out pseudo-intellectual or even idiotic statements. It’s not meant for words anyway! (Incidentally, my young friend prefers this to the first type!)

  3. The GHOST type. This type of man you have probably been with for too long that you can’t stand looking at his face or listening to his voice, but for some reason you’re stuck with him.  Nothing he says makes sense to you. Nothing he wears makes you want to look at him.  So you just let him talk, but you don’t hear him; he walks about the room, but you don’t see him. (Honestly, I don’t know why some people insist on being together when being so only makes both parties unhappy!) 

  4. The OCCASIONALLY-HANDSOME-AND-SMART type. The occasion being when you’re in a good mood and you find him so adorable and so smart. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder. What is handsome to one woman when she’s happy, may become ugly when she’s unhappy. This kind of man’s handsomeness and intelligence all depends on your mood. He can be the handsomest and the smartest when you’re in a good mood, but he can also be a candidate for the third type when you’re in a bad mood.

This is a superficial observation, and I’m writing this just for fun (partly to comfort my young friend). But what I really want to say is, sometimes we cannot choose who we are attracted to, and sometimes too, the very thing that once attracted us to one person may be the very thing that we would one day find most annoying about that person. Hence, these emotions we have towards people are truly unreliable. It is always wiser to listen to reason than to our emotions when we choose someone with whom we have to share the rest of our lives.

Have a lovely week(end)! It’s already weekend for me! Yay!

T.

Daily Prompt: Exposed 

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“Violet by  a mossy stone 

Half-hidden from the eye …” — Wordsworth 

I saw this beautiful little flower by the side of the road during my morning walk last weekend. From a distance, it truly looked quite ordinary  but, since I had not seen this kind of flower before,  I knelt down and took a closer look.  I thought it was beautiful, so I took this photo. 

This particular violet flower is no longer “half-hidden from the eye.” Its beauty is exposed for my readers to see. 🙂 

Have a lovely week! 
T. 


Hidden Beauty in Nature’s Design 

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I saw this flower yesterday for the very first time. I haven’t gotten around to finding out what it’s called. The colors and their arrangement really attracted me. 

Today’s Prompt is “spike.” From this angle, one cannot see the spike (stalk) that holds the flower together, yet, though not as conspicuous as the petals,  it  is part of this flower’s beauty.  

Have a beautiful weekend!
T. 

Daily Prompt: Spike