Beauty
I walked
into the library and I immediately started scoping out a place where we could
all sit. I saw five chairs near the corner of the library and said, “Score!” I
was all excited we were there, excited to write, and excited to be doing this
with amazing people! I grabbed a chair and started pushing it to the window. I
suppose I thought a good view would be a tranquil experience. Nicole said, “It’s
interesting that we put our backs to the culture”. I sat, looked out the window
and saw the divides of J.C. Nichols, the problem of the city. Why did I want to
look at that? For the six years I’ve been in Kansas City and the buildings and ‘skyscapes’
have always stood out to me. As we sat in a row of four by the corner of the
windows in the Plaza Library, I realized beauty is what has been enticing me to
this area for years. But what is beauty? So I turned around to find out.
Although I
probably looked like the odd duck out since I was no longer facing the window
like the rest of my group, I didn’t care, I had a quest to find the heart, the
soul, and the root of the beauty that sucked me to the corner of that library.
I sat and looked around. There didn’t seem to be a sense of urgency anywhere.
Except for this girl, sitting and bouncing her legs. Not in a, “I need to go to
the bathroom” type of way, but a, “this text message just made me very uncomfortable”
type of way. She had a snug summery dress on showing the skin that had been sun
kissed. She had her laptop out and some papers, maybe working on something for
school or waiting on someone to show up, but seemingly disconnected from the
work that laid in front of her and the gadget connected to her thumbs. Everyone
around her seemed nearly motionless.
There was a
middle aged man who seemed like he was in no hurry to hurry up and get out of
here. He looked tired by the way he was sprawled out on the couch. Half slumped
sideways, half sitting. His pale arms held his head up. His clothes were worn,
but not dirty. Tennis shoes that look like they have seen more miles than my car,
but not sloppy. He was looking at atlases. Was he going somewhere or just
wondering where he could be? But again, seemed to be in no hurry to find out.
There were
two old gentleman reading near our group. One who seemed to be intrigued by the
massive novel in his hand. As he read he took big long deep breathes, his lip would
go out every once and awhile. He often put his hand on his head, or rubbed his
cheek with the side of his knuckles as his fist was loosely balled up. His jaw
moved, maybe you could say it dropped, when he moved his hand to his head. He
laid the book on his lap and presses his head down further like he was really
getting into it.
The other
gentleman was floating his way through a magazine. I could not see what kind,
but it had a lot of bright pictures. He was probably twenty years older than
the other man, but looked like his physical health was well, externally at
least.
There was
another man in his mid-twenties sitting at a table with books spread out. He
looks tired, but engaged and interested in what he was looking at and reading.
At that
moment, a young man walks in with arms full of books, a briefcase, and loose
papers. He did not slam the items on the ground, but he seemed to have no care
in the world as to what was going on around him in the library. He sat down
hard in the chair and opened a book. I could see the large title “REAL MONEY”
on the front. He sat and read for about three minutes before getting up and
moving. He walked with a stride, he dressed in a plaid shirt and khakis. The
plaid shirt had a color scheme that oddly matched the freshly cleaned khakis.
He went around the row of books, must have placed something over there, and
walked out the door.
As he was
walking out, a large man walked into the library with a wife beater on tucked
into dirty jeans. He had a white towel around his neck. You could see his sweat
glistening on his face and arms. His steps were heavy as he walked towards the
kiosk to sign up for a computer. He stood around waiting for a computer to come
open. He placed his towel on his chair, sat and began reading something on a
news website.
At that
moment a small child, maybe two or three started crying. Her mom hushed her in
a way that was comforting. A way that my mother would comfort me when I cried.
Her child looked tired, and hot. The older kids that stood near placed their
hand on the child as if to say without speaking, “We understand, but stop
crying.”
At this
time, Nicole asked if we wanted to talk about writings. I always want to talk,
but I was seeing a different side to life, to beauty that I had not recognized,
or took the time to recognize in really long time. I moved to Kansas City and
was always amazed and astonished by beauty, but I looked at beauty by the
buildings and the skylines. I would find beauty when I drove out to the lake to
take pictures of reflections, trees, and nature. But I was realizing while
sitting in that library that the beauty in life comes from the people in it,
not what the people are in.
We packed up
our things and headed to the large conference room to talk about what we wrote.
Nicole and Michelle were stuck. Jeff started to make observations about wealth
in such a powerful way. Then our conversation shifted. In the man van on the
way to the library, we started expressing our desire to be close to one
another. We all agreed that friendships were tough for us. We loved our
friends, so we were either really involved in people’s lives or we were
completely uninvolved. We decided that since we all live in different areas and
worked in different schools we had to find to way to stay attached, to stay
writing, to stay thinking and learning and growing. We decided on having blogs,
we would write together and read each other’s writing. I had a blog already
made, but the other three designed there’s. We wanted to stay connected, to
have a reason to write, an audience that likes, no loves, what we say. We wanted
to feel valued too.
As we were
wrapping up talking and about to walk to the van, Jeff said, “I think we all
agree, that our cultural experience was this group right here.” I looked at
him, like “No dude, I’m going to write about what I saw.” We all kind of
laughed, but what I came to realize is, we too are a part of our culture. The culture
of our lives is what we were surrounded by today.
I walked
into the library and sat with my back turned to true beauty of our city. After
I turned around, the more I looked up, the more I wanted to write. I was
disturbed by moving into the room, but decided a culture isn’t in a stagnate
place, it’s where we are. The beauty is in the people we around. Whether that
is in a library, at a SI session, in our Rite Club, on a street corner, a
crowded restaurant, in our homes, or at our schools.
Beauty is…
Tired
Present
Nervous
Hurried
Interested
Peaceful
Loving
Similar
Different
Kind
Sad
Happy
Together
Beauty is people.
Wow, that was amazing...
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