Through the Veils of Spring

I spent this morning trying to prune the overgrown ivy on my balcony. It was messy work, and my hands were stained with dirt, but I found myself pausing every few minutes just to look through the gaps in the leaves. When you look at something through a screen of branches, it changes. The world feels softer, more private, like you are catching a glimpse of a secret that wasn’t meant for you. We spend so much of our lives trying to get a clear, unobstructed view of everything, as if clarity is the only way to understand what is in front of us. But maybe the beauty isn’t in the full, wide-open sight. Maybe it is in the partial view, the hidden edges, and the way a familiar shape becomes something entirely new when it is framed by the wild, tangled things that grow around it. Does the mystery of a thing make it more real to you than the thing itself?

Nicole Gilmer has captured this feeling perfectly in her image titled April in Paris. It reminds me that even the most famous sights can feel like a personal discovery when you find the right place to stand. What do you see when you look through the branches?