that great capacity

We have the capacity to remember dreams and to be surprised by beauty; on every beautiful day, if we are right, we open our eyes and are happy to see it. Our memory for beauty diminishes as we sink and so as we re-encounter it the joy we feel is undiminished, or greater perhaps if it triggers the old memories of beauty and we experience not only the happiness at what is before us but happiness at the remembrance that such things exist at all. I suppose that depends on how far one has sunk. I think of this today as it is sunny and clear, unhumid and comfortably warm. This is beauty for us because the light and the warmth please us physically and psychologically, and the acceptance of this happiness begins to please us spiritually. Is that what it is? Not just happiness, but the acceptance of happiness that brings peace? As our memories of heat and cold collect we are only surprised by the change in season as our bodies age and receive the temperature more sensitively. When what we expect and what we feel are divergent we feel surprise. I do not know what this means then that we are all surprised constantly by beauty.