the writing and photography of Neil Kramer

Beautiful

I read over the last few posts and thought there was too much sex stuff going on. I really feel like expressing something beautiful today, like a tender poem, written from the heart. I just can’t think of anything. Sorry.

I searched on Google for a famous painting that I consider beautiful, a Gauguin or a Matisse, and I was going to just publish it as an example of beauty, but it just seemed stupid, publishing someone else’s famous painting.

A few weeks ago, Sophia and I were staying in a hotel, and on Saturday night, there was an Indian wedding. The women and men both wore such exotic clothes, multi-colored saris of the finest fabrics and rare silks for the women, and light-colored suits with intricate embroidery that enhanced the dark complexions of the Indian men.

Indian wedding clothes are beautiful.

I don’t find mountains as beautiful as grasslands. I think I would like living on a farm for a while. I really love rivers. Rivers are beautiful. The Brooklyn Bridge is beautiful. I would like to live by a brook. I really enjoy the sound of water moving, even when I’m standing in the shower. I can shower for an hour. I like to move around, letting the water hit me in different spots, listening to the shower spray off me at different angles, which changes the musical tone of the final splash.

I like that last line. It makes me laugh. The line isn’t beautiful, but laughter is.

There’s no point to this post. I like that. Not everything has to have a point. Like when you give a flower to a girl. What can she do with the flower? Not much other than look at it and enjoy the beauty.

I wish this post was more beautiful, like the sunset in Malibu or the leaves changing to orange in Vermont during the briskness of early Fall.

But I’m not God, so it isn’t easy.

37 Comments

  1. sarah

    if beautys truely held
    by those with whom its seen
    then true beauty would be found
    only by those, whose eyes no longer see

  2. tamarika

    Beautiful! Wistful, lyrical. It went well with my mood. I just finished writing a letter to my Blog and somehow finding your post at the exact same minute felt … well … beautiful …
    Thank you.

  3. alissa

    I think your honesty is beautiful. Great post!

  4. Jenn

    beauty is in the eye of the beholder. your writing in this post is borderline poetic!

  5. better safe than sorry

    just because you don’t see a point, don’t think there is no point to this, because it is beautiful.
    sometimes we fail to see what is right in front of our nose.

  6. Atomic Bombshell

    I think Indian weddings are beautiful, too.

  7. melanie

    a Malibu sunset really is beautiful, so is a Santa Barbara one.

    do you find smells beautiful too? is beauty restrained to one sense alone? I think the feel of clean sheets against a sun kissed body is beautiful.

  8. Neil

    I never thought of smells being beautiful, but I guess they are. I like the smell of dill.

  9. teebopop

    I guess you just don’t realize the impact your words have on people. You are a wordsmith and words are your art form.

    The pictures (and whatnot) that you could have posted would dull in comparison to the words that are flowing to your fingertips to the keyboard.

    The visual impressions are beautiful and they are your creation. Nothing gets better than that.

  10. Dagny

    Psst. The name is spelled “Gauguin.”

    And Indian wedding clothes are indeed quite beautiful.

  11. lizardek

    God or not, you write beautifully.

  12. Rick

    Ps-s-s-s-t. The name is spelled “ganja.”

  13. sandra

    I think I love stream-of-consciousness.

  14. Neil

    Thanks, Dagny. My spelling is certainly suffering while Sophia is busy with other things.

  15. Margaret

    i don’t think it’s easy for God either

  16. wendy

    oh sweetie.

  17. steppingoverthejunk

    I can shower for an hour too, as long as I’m not paying for the water bill.

  18. come running

    just found your blog and am really enjoying it.

    can also stay in the shower for an hour… i love water and the way it feels on my skin

    http://dreamsofwho.blogspot.com/2007/08/not-what-you-think.html

  19. butterfly

    Dear Mr. Neil,

    I think you may enjoy playing with this pretty thing I made a while ago…using photos of my mom’s orchids and nature sounds…

    It features some of the sounds you like (as well as some other pretty ones) — take a little sensory-break and enjoy!

    http://www.vanessaleehamlen.com/naturesymphony/

    ;-D vanessa

  20. helen

    A few martinis and everything will be beautiful. 🙂

  21. Ash

    Nice post Neil! 🙂

  22. V-Grrrl

    Keats said it best in Ode on a Grecian Urn: Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

    Beauty for me: the woods in any season, the shape of a single tree against the sky, a moody sky, the nape of a man’s neck, a baby’s dimpled knuckles, a child’s flawless skin, sunflowers, black-eyed susans, fields of wheat, burnished wood, my friends’ signatures, the way a warm mug feels in my hands, worn stone and brick, a cat in a window…

  23. Bre

    just really, really lovely.

  24. August

    I loved this post. I know I’m new here but I can already see that you have a beautiful soul, Neil.

    By the way, you didn’t happen to be in a Cleveland hotel a few weeks ago, did you? It’s quite the kwinky dink that just a few Saturdays ago, my hubs and I were also staying in a hotel and there was also an Indian wedding taking place. I had never seen Indian wedding clothes and I too was really taken in by how unique and beautiful everyone looked.

  25. scarlet hip

    The final splash? Classic.

  26. patois

    The writing about sex is funny, yes, so don’t stop those types of post. But this post? Beautiful. I’ve never seen an Indian wedding up close, but your description makes me think I might have.

  27. Not Fainthearted

    What a beautiful post. I like getting glimpses into your heart without the defensive mechanism of humor. You have a tender heart, Neilochka. That’s why you can appreciate (and create) beauty. And why it hurts sometimes, too.

  28. Bryna

    This was such a nice post. That’s how I felt when I saw my first Indian wedding. Amazed. Awed and inspired.

    Beauty also, a great rainstorm with lightning while sitting on the front porch. A single drop into a puddle. Ferns that haven’t quite opened yet. The sound of frogs chirping you to sleep.

  29. Alice

    lovely post. it was charming and calming, which are not 2 things i’d normally expect from the same blog post.

  30. kapgar

    What the heck is wrong with sex posts?

  31. Pearl

    Beautiful post. A good rest for my hurting head.

    Wish Indian men’s traditional wedding clothes would go mainstream with men in the west. Gorgeous stuff.

  32. JanePoe (aka Deborah)

    This has a very Woody Allen feel to it … or maybe I’m just in a Woody Allen kinda mood.
    Tangentailly yours, JP

  33. churlita

    You want to live next to a brook, or a hot chick named Brooke, or both?

    Also, you are welcome to hang out here in Iowa. We have nothing but grasslands and rivers.

  34. Christine

    Your post couldn’t have been more beautiful. What a great first post for me to read, I’ll definitely be back for more! 🙂

  35. pia

    I like this post. I have long been of the blogging school of existenstial posts
    or something
    I was engaged to an East Indian. Indian mothers and Jewish mothers have a lot in common. I probably should blog on that someday

  36. Therese

    I like this post.

    I like water in the same way, actually.

    Sometimes, I like wading in a frigid brook, climbing standing on a rock and watching the water go around it. I like watching the water sometimes flow over it. I like seeing how long I can stand there, listening to sounds, feeling the cold, cold water on my cold, cold feet. When I feel like I can’t stand it any longer and goosebumps form on my arms despite the warm weather, I like to scramble out of the water as though I’ve just been burned, squealing about the cold until I reach the shore, my shoes, my socks.

  37. Deborah

    I love the post. It rings of real beauty. But beauty can also be found in sex, though, if you focus on what it could do for a relationship. It can deepen love, through it’s shared intimacy. This book I’m reading is a good example of how sex develops and nurtures the love between a couple, and I think some things just can’t be more beautiful than that.

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