first glance, second look

One Saturday in 1991 I lost myself in a garden center and when I emerged hours later knew that I'd rediscovered myself. The same thing happened again recently.

Back then I'd unexpectedly followed a persistent impulse by meandering the aisles of a local nursery despite deadlines and to-do lists as long as my arm. Turned out to have been the best choice and that day I found something that I'd fallen out of touch long before: I loved to dig in the dirt and to see things grow. In truth, I really fell back in love with beauty -- missing from my life while I'd been busy doing other things. That hot summer day marked the beginning of some unforeseen and profound personal changes, and the culmination of a period in my life during which the roads I'd traveled had led me far from what truly mattered to me, beauty among them.

Now once more, about a month ago, I unexpectedly wandered the aisles of a store, this time examining wall art. Not my plan that day, but where I ended up and I left with four pieces to try on my walls.

I've lived with the same images in various homes for over twenty years so it intrigued me that day -- always the last to know -- that I was drawn to new colors and patterns. I chose a creamy white daylily against a rich dark piecework background, a small square comprised of nine smaller squares again pieced together some of which bore words like hope, truth, wisdom..., and a tall contemporary collage with ragged strips of color and assorted shapes with things like a butterfly or a postage stamp cast randomly. Two pieces were set in dark brown frames and the collage stood out from a box frame jutting out from the wall.

The fourth was a last-minute impulse. I'd noticed, studied and rejected it several times during my walk-through but then cautioned myself, as I walked out with my carefully considered three, that I might regret it if I didn't try that remaining one. So I returned and grabbed a square print matted with a creamy marble and set in a burnished gold frame, much different than the others. It was a landscape of sunset golds, purples and deep pinks blazing in the foliage of trees. They surrounded a house nestled among them, across a field or meadow and barely visible to the viewer.

I spent the next few weeks experimenting with my new pictures in various locations, but finally had to admit that the two darker pieces were just that: too dark for the room. It surprised me (as so many things do, it seems) that those two that spoke most to me at the time should be the ones that had to go back. A friend had once told me that when she thought of me, she always thought of a lily. That flattering thought has stayed with me all these years so I was disappointed that the simple image of that slender white flower couldn't stay as well. Nor could the word collage. Try as I might, it was muddy and unreadable in this light and so it had to go too. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make them work.

The contemporary print, however, had found the perfect home, its flowing lines and colorful splashes bordering a tablescape in the living room. And my reluctant fourth choice turned out to be the biggest surprise of all.

The more I contemplated it, the more I began to recognize it as a view from the highway I used to travel to visit my parents -- and later my mother after my father died -- in Vermont. For decades I'd cast my eyes to the left on the way up and to the right on the way back, always imagining that one day I might live in a place like that. It's a white house nestled among trees and perched at the side of a quiet lake. I watched those trees grow over the years and welcomed the privacy they eventually provided the homeowners, who lived within eyeshot of the highway -- not part of my imagined idyll. So that was it. I had to keep the print just as some part of me holds the dream if only as a special place inside.

Then several days later another surprise: I suddenly realized that the picture of the waterfront home is a self-portrait. It perfectly depicts my private, introverted nature surrounded by vibrant, passionate hues and a quiet expanse of breathing room. Now I have graphic evidence -- artistic proof -- that there's true beauty in being exactly who you are. It's taken me many years, a few wrong turns, and a couple of dead ends to discover, but it turns out that I was home all along.