I Needed Some Pretty

I normally do not consume network news, it is a choice I made in 2000. But I broke my own rule after reading and reading and reading about the devastation in Japan. Words feel empty, typed into a blog post, from the safety and comfort of my intact home. It is in times like these that I make myself find some pretty.

my backyard plum tree, captured this weekend

It is not that the pretty makes the ugly go away. But it is a like a tiny band-aid for my heart. When I am overwhelmed with sadness, and bursting with empathy for those affected by natural disasters such as this, I think it is okay to soothe my heart ache with a little moment of prettiness. 

I will defer to Poet Laureate Charles Simic, his words are much more eloquent than mine:  "Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships." I suppose my backyard plum tree is my lighthouse.