Toni (lifelong friend and living-breathing muse) and I lingered over lunch at a favorite French bistro. We talked about work, loving work and being in no hurry to stop working and our conversation strayed to living beautifully in spite of the demands of work. We parted on a challenge to look for ways to add beauty to our lives each day. I wonder if Juliet Rome happened on that wing.
I have been teased nearly as many years as I am old for being a romantic and I am married to one. The name Juliet Rome appeals to that nature and makes me believe life can be extraordinary if you live it intentionally, persistently, openly enough. Juliet Rome points to things I believe are important and beautiful. I love what Toni said in a text…Juliet Rome makes me feel gratitude and appreciation for and recognition of the beauty you suggest can be curated and experienced each day.
I remember asking my childhood best friend Eve if she thought God would frown on how much I love beauty. Always the sage, she replied that he is the author of beauty. Decades later, an encounter with a fine artist affirmed some part of that in her admonition that she needs to live in Kansas inside the beauty of four seasons to do her best work.
My mother creates beauty in everything she touches in her home and gardens. Not once have J. and I entered our bedroom there without finding roses and current reading material selected to please us. I have never, nor will I ever meet someone with her appetite for learning and resulting exquisite ability to transform spaces.
I have served a client with an international business for nearly a decade who embodies beauty in his elegant approach to people. He is graceful, interested, well-considered and considerate to a fault.
It is one of the great mysteries of life that we are all uniquely made. My brother and son have never met a stranger…they look for the masterpiece in everyone…and that is beautiful.
If we listen and watch we find beauty all around us every day. And our reactions to it shape our ideals and become our emotional memory card…our own Juliet Rome or muse for life and work.
Photo by Thimo van Leeuwen on Unsplash
