Highly illogical musings on beauty

Today I sent this nutty text to someone I’ll refer to as “Mr. Spock.” I find it really funny exposing my creative, abstract mind to his rational, logical one. He liked it. Here goes:

> in Italy all the men wore jewelry. I don't really care what someone looks like. when someone is in their element, they are always striking. I never forgot when I was in the car with you in January. this was when we had dinner. you were thinking, or puzzling together something, and you looked beautiful. I love looking at you when you are deep in thought, or when you used to explain things to me. it is the same as watching a person do their job very well – like, watch my coworker make a drink, or watch a person play at sports. even if they are bad at it, if they are focused, and you can see that they are putting all of their energy into something, it is beautiful. even the old, toothless, pot-bellied man who came into the café, bought himself a little choccy milk, and sat down by himself and drank all of it, was beautiful. because in that moment, it was like he had melted into the scenery. he became one with his surroundings, the stale corporate building, the looming dread of modern architecture. he is one with this. he looked truly alive in spite of this. the pinnacle of humanity can exist in one lonely person. this is how I felt when I sat at the Pantheon.

My favorite thing about the text is that the first sentence has nothing to do with the rest of it. What happened was, I thought of jewelry, thought of a specific, curly-haired guy who served me gelato in Manarola who I found really beautiful, and then started thinking about what it means to be beautiful.

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