photo by me

I’m reading Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid’s Chair. In it, one of the characters, Brother Timothy, is talking about being outside, in nature, and finding solace and peace there. He calls it the “beautiful nothing.”

It just is. It’s that place where people miss how beautiful it is because they’ve seen it a million times.

It’s that place where someone has walked or passed by on their way to work and have missed the beauty of it.

I think this is one of the reasons I’m drawn to photography.

I photograph everything – door handles, trees, dogs, kids, even my toes or a curl on my cheek.

I find something comforting, satisfying, and spiritual in these things. There is something intrinsically beautiful in all of them. Whether it’s a dead tree, a rusty door handle, a can thrown into the forest, or the curve of my own neck, I can find something beautiful in each one.

So I start to wonder if creating something beautiful out of the beautiful nothing is more important than the creative act itself or is that a part of the process for me? Am I trying to turn all of the hurt and pain and sadness that I’ve seen in the world into something beautiful?

I don’t tend to photograph other people – I don’t do urban/street photography (which seems to be very popular and well-received in online communities). It makes me uncomfortable. It’s too gritty for me. It’s too close to the edge.

I will stand on the edge of an 800-foot sheer cliff and photograph down into a canyon but I won’t stand on the edge of a sidewalk curb to photograph another human being.

Am I creating my own beautiful nothings? I look at the details of a blade of grass but refuse to focus on the frayed sleeve of a man sitting on a street corner.

I think about the world I’m creating, the photos I hang in my office and my home.

Yesterday a faculty member was in my office and he saw my photographs on my 3 monitors in my office. He said to me, “You’ve created your own windows into the world. What a beautiful view you have.”

And he was right.

I see the ocean at sunset.

I see the depths of the Grand Canyon.

I see a shell sitting in a puddle of water.

And it’s beautiful. And it’s calming. And I find solace in it.

And yet, it is nothing. A bright, amazing, beautiful nothing.