What Makes Life Beautiful?

May 29th, 2012

What makes life beautiful to you? What opens your heart and your mind? Is there something that can penetrate your exterior housing to reach the depths of your spiritual being, releasing the pressure from the amplitude of your hardened arteries so it can exude from your body slowly deflating the strain of your lifeblood.

Is it the sight of a mountain range?

Rising from the landscape and expanding in a denticulate manner piercing the blue skyline with its jagged frontier. The white snow littered on the butte, glaring back at you like a blank canvass. The trees framing your vision in a perfect box as they creep into your view. The branches of the Limber Pine gradually lining the mountains countryside. It’s green evergreen needles clashing against the white mountain side snow, but its white lined leaves blending its edges into the foreground of the large mass. Standing by the side of the Limber Pine is the Narrowleaf Cottonwood. Its tall trunk not quite reaching its sixty feet range, but the serrated leaves are cutting into its neighborhood of trees, as the residue snow falls into your picture landing on the ground before you. The Douglas-fir is dotting your vista stirring up the aroma of pine, reminding you of Christmas. Following the tree line with your eyes, they become fixated on the shoreline as the Douglas-fir’s contours along the river bank. The water shimmers as a slight ripple from the cold air disrupts the water enough to distort your pleasure of seeing the mountain range twice in your seascape. The cool air pounds on your face until its numb, turning your cheeks red. Your breath is seen billowing out of your mouth as warm moisture is exhaled from your lungs condensing with the cold climate. There is beauty in every breath as the terrain comforts you. Your mind basking in the tranquility of something so massive, so beautiful, and as pure as the snowcapped mountains.

To look at a picture and imagine you are there can be very cathartic to your body, but sometimes finding nourishment in words can open the mind by displacing the structured aspect of your life that are swirling around in your head that turn a bright day dark.

Sitting outside to feel the pounding rays of the sun and enjoying nature to clear my mind, a Monarch butterfly elegantly whirls around me and lands on a flower.

The milkweeds long wing span arches’ up and curves downward rounding into its six legged body. The black and orange hues are highlighted within the aileron of the beautiful flying insect ,gives a reminder of Halloween. White polka dots outline the outer edge of his wings and if he sits still long enough you can try and play connect the dots. Black streaks line the airfoil like riverbeds carving out the land. I’m mesmerized by the soft landing it accomplished on such a delicate flower. The head sits up right, but the orange petals droop back, exposing the vulnerability of the pollen. Life creating life again, as he flies off. Its colors reflecting off the suns rays as he is pushed along by mother natures breeze. Life as usual in his world.

We all search for comfort in our time of need or stress. A quick get away to help us forget our troubles. The hope is that if you squeeze your eyes tight enough you’ll fall into your conscience and magically be in another world. But as hard as we try we never end up on that beach or somewhere on that island. Most of the time the only island we find ourselves on is the Island of Despair.

It doesn’t mean we can’t dream. Dream of a better place, another country.

I’ve always wanted to go to Greece. I have a passport just begging for a stamp. I want to see the coliseum standing before me, as I gaze into her history. The Roman architecture on full display as the travertine rock shapes the walls and forming the archways. As level after level rises from the earth, my imagination runs free of the fifty-thousand people, that once were, stood there and cheered, and now, at least in my mind, there again. I fill in the missing pieces of rock to make the stadium whole again, the large pieces that are missing now, appear like a breach in a ships hull, and takes away how wide and expansive she once was. The face of the once masterpiece of the Roman Empire is dark from the years of exposure to the elements. The day fades to night and the orange lights peer put from the inside out blazing the night sky and hiding her imperfections. It is a world to escape to when in reality absconding is not an option.

The will to open up is within everyone. It just takes the right vision and the desire to make it happen. I get lost in my children.

The way the interact with one another. Little sips of juice then pass to the other one as he says, “share.” When they approach me and ask me to take off their shirts. I oblige and tell them, “Raise your arms.” He closes his eyes, lifts both arms above his head,. I grab the bottom of the shirt, and like a magician who pulls the table cloth out from under the dishes, I swoop in and lift it up, removing his shirt with out a snag. He jumps with delight, “Yes, Yes, Yes!” he shouts. My other son approaches me and I do the same with him. They both do a dance like if they’re doing the Dosey Doe and run off into the other room. I get lost in Nico’s way of blowing kisses. He tells me he loves me and blows air kisses at me by sucking in his lips and using his facial muscles to pull them apart, sucking in the air and creating a popping sound. Christopher loves to lay by my side and repeat whatever I say back to me. By the way he thinks, “I’m the greatest.”

Life is beautiful. It can be ugly at times but so can all of us. Life is human because humans sustain life.

When your faced with the bad, close your eyes and get lost in the good. Its there in your mind, you just have to figure out what makes life beautiful for you?


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Christopher Fusaro. The author of Captain Imperfecto.

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