Not People Places

Yesterday while people were meeting. I went walking to find something worth a photograph. I thought maybe I’d find something inspiring, something motivating. I was hoping for soft lines and curves set there by nature. Instead what I found were the hard lines and curves of concrete.

Nature had no hand these spaces. People hands had done the making.

As I walked through them, long before the cars, buses, and foot traffic, I recognized that, in their own way, the lines and curves came to gether with the light to make something not unpleasant, almost cheerful and oddly elegant. A thoughtful designer saw to it that the frontmost walls let in the natural light while blocking the street scene and its noises. I was grateful that the committee who approved the work had kept the touch of deep blue relief that was the ceiling.

As I waited, I imagined the space filled with people. The simplicity of the scene became chaotic and stressful with the movement, noise, and echoes.

Try as we might, humans don’t seem to make peaceful spaces for people outside the high ceilings of a place of worship, a library, or a space filled with a loving fmaily.

Have you found humanity in other places not made by nature?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!