April challenge: Five Beauties

I recently read something in a book. Unfortunately, I can't remember which book, but it was probably Robert McKee/Story or Julia Cameron/Finding Water. I think it was Cameron. Sorry ...

Anyway, the writer gave the advice of watching for Five Beauties, every single day, to enhance not only your writing or other art medium, but also your inner life. They can be simple or involved, abstract or concrete. I started doing this casually a few weeks ago, just mentally noting things as I saw them, but I'd like to do it more formally this month. I want to challenge you to do it, too.

I'll attempt to make a record here as many days in April as I can, although there might be some I keep to myself, either for personal reasons or because "you can't say that on television!!" ;)

I might add them to the end of another blog post, or just let them stand alone. Keep me accountable, would you? And try it yourself. Let's see what it does for our work. Let me know if you're playing in the comments, and I'll be sure to check yours out, too.

Getting started here for April 1. I'm assigning a sense to each item when I can, just to be sure I'm not only looking, but also listening, touching, smelling, and tasting.

1) Sound: Birdsong. It's amazing how sharp and clear this sound is even when traveling through the double-paned windows of my house. (I need to get out more, obviously.) Several birds are conversing outside as I type. One sounds angry.

2) Sound: The tick of the oversized clock on my wall in the silence of my house. Could be like water torture, but it's surprisingly soothing to me during the day.

3) Sight: A teen boy, maybe 14 or 15, running with his dog. He wore a white t-shirt and black shorts, and was quite pale and had black hair. He was tall and lanky. His dog was mostly white, but had three or four large, irregular black patches. He was tall and lanky. They matched.

4) Sight: The Yaupon Hollies (I think) in the parkways. The branches were covered densely with bright red/orange berries, but they have bloomed out into green leaves on about the last foot of each branch. They reminded me of Kokopelli, with his spiky hair.

5) Sight: At the grocery store, someone had left two homemade-looking chocolate chip cookies on top of stacks of bottled tea. I wondered if someone forgot them, or they were poisoned, but they were very pretty anyway! Weird one ...

I need to be more aware of things I can smell, touch, or taste tomorrow, don't I?