THE LOOKING GLASS REVERSED

People see the exact same thing in many, many different ways.

An anorexia sees food in terms of possible weight gain. An addict is overwhelmed by the physical and/or mental dependency. An artist is attracted to color, form and contrast.

Okay, enough with the 'a' thing, girlfriend.

Some see the world "through a glass, darkly." My husband, for example, stares at all surroundings though pessimistic, cynical and paranoid glasses - shadowed by his own severe depression and his profession with anti-terrorism measures.

I have my own rose-colored-but-also-reality-tined ones.

This afternoon I accompanied my daughter to an abandoned egg farm in Wahiwa, Oahu for a photo shoot.

But I can't find photos that show the beauty there, so I'll see what I can add through words. Imagine:

- Rusting, paint-peeling tractors, with random vines and flowers creeping throughout, over and below

- Abandoned sheds with stacked wooden egg crates, rotting wood and yellow hibiscus blooming throughout

- Wild cats threading through labyrinths of corroded metal bars, rolls of chicken wire and barrels devoured by crawling tendrils of both trees and plants

- Impossibly tall banyan trees blocking sun, casting flickering shadows and brooding over muddy red pathways

The Buddha is quoted as saying, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

I don't understand botany at all, but I and my daughter saw so much beauty in this derelict graveyard of unconnected objects that I felt we were treading on holy ground.