Beauty Lines the Pathways

I bent down and peered through the bars. "Apat na...Mountain Dew...?" The couple nodded and began filling bottles and passing them out one by one. "Magkano? How much?" 48 pesos... We had been wandering along the dusty road looking for someone to fix our bike and my kids were struggling with the heat. Now as they sipped their sodas they showed signs of relief.

It wasn't long before the woman emerged from behind her cage and began curiously questioning me on my venture. Within moments I had made a friend, her warm smile brightening the dim little shop. She told me she was 65 but she looked much much younger. She carried an air of grace that made me wonder what she was doing sitting in the depths of this convenience store. Surely she should be mingling with the movers and shakers of society.

I keep discovering beauty in the oddest of places...the ‘Ya Yas’ who meet in the park every evening as the kids they care for busily play; the women on the roof working their way through piles of dirty clothes; my 'suki' who supplies our veggies in the wet-market; the birds that flutter around the aisles of the store; the guards in our complex who never fail to smile and wish us well for the day…

Walking home yesterday my eyes fell on a pile of rubbish in the bush but it wasn’t the scraps that caught my eye. Amidst the discarded wrappers, standing tall and majestic, the petals of a Purple Shower waved in the breeze. Untainted, unaware of it’s surroundings. Beautiful. This week I didn’t need to go digging for beauty - it found me. It burst forth and with a loud voice shouted “I am here, and everywhere you step I will be lining your pathways.”