I had to stop...

I had to stop and take a beauty break. Just now. Right now. The light from the evening sun to the east, outside my office window, is spectacular. I stood up to look out the window and drink it in.

I don't live in a beautiful place. But that doesn't matter. In the foreground are flowers on green plum, Asian pear, Oregon grape. The middle ground—bare branches of ash and oak. Further, the orange of a neighbor's new fence, utility lines and poles, the lime green of a huge weeping willow, and beyond—gray clouds, white clouds, blue sky. Hint of rainbow.

There's a breeze lifting the willow's fronds (word check later) and for some reason unknown to me, I thought of mastodons, those massive beasts that roamed this land millennia ago. I'm looking at this big shaggy willow lit by a sun and weaving by the breeze and I get this image of a mastodon – go figure, we're in strange new territory.

And I'm writing again for the first time in weeks. I'm still so busy (lucky) with work, but if I don't write now, I might as well give it up for good. This. Beauty. Us. You. Now.