It Begins
I don’t even know where to start…but here goes. I’ve been wanting to create something like It’s Pretty By Lori for sometime now. The idea came to me on a road trip to my parent’s house several years back. I was starring up at the sky, something I often do on road-trips, if I’m not sleeping…I don’t typically do the driving. I was really taken aback by all the beauty and I was especially in-tuned to the mountain and rock formations. What sort of story did the rock formation live, to get to where it is right now? Does it know how BEAUTIFUL it is?
My parents live in New Mexico, up the mountain at about 8000 feet above sea level, in a little town about a half and hour from Los Cruces. Meaning, everything on the horizon was tan, brown or maybe a little pink, but definitely desert-y…not something you’d think would inspire an idea like delicate beauty, or dynamic transformation…but that is where it ALL (thinking big) started. I got all excited and motivated about this idea as we were driving, so I pulled out my phone to get a started, I had immediately come up with the name, Its Pretty By Lori, which I needed to make sure I secured on social media; no one else could have it…so therefore, it was mine!
A few years later
Well…that moment was SEVERAL years ago…and here I am…just now sitting down to write. It’s not unlike me to take some time to get the ball rolling on things, but when the ball starts…just watch me (took me 15 years to get a B.A. in Business…lol,). So about, 3 years ago, now, was when I set up an Instagram account for It’s Pretty By Lori; my 2nd attempt at getting things going for this heart project — that didn’t seem to have much direction.
Then I ran into the most beautiful flower, it was the most perfect Hibiscus — I felt moved by it’s beauty, but wasn’t sure why (I don’t think I have seen such a pretty Hibiscus since). It was backdropped by the most beautiful hunter green hedge, which helped to pulled all of the bright orange details center stage. I was kind of perplexed by the beauty of what I was looking at. I quickly took the picture and went on with my day. Later I found myself bored from a task I was working at work (I know, bad form…but you need a brain break every now and again). I opened up one of the photo editing apps on my phone and started playing with the colors of the flower. The radiance of the original picture was so grand that when I made adjustments to the picture, it just got more and more fascinating (I wish I still had the original pic – it’s gotta be here somewhere). As I adjusted the saturation, the radiance, the highlights and the brightness on the image the flower just opened up even more…kind of like a really good book…the story it was telling me was refined, then ugly, then washed out, then brilliant, then soft, then exquisite… The image had such a complexity to it…but yet is was so FUCKING beautiful. It made me think, “wow, beauty can be complex”. I mean I know that from experience. My life too has been all of those things… So the surprise of every adjustment of the picture was just delightful, and relatable all at the same time. THAT’S IT, that would be the first post of It’s Pretty By Lori’s Instagram account! I added the words “BEAUTY CAN BE COMPLEX” to the image — cause no one really ever reads a caption… I made sure to include ‘can be’ instead of ‘is’ because the point is, the potential in the beauty…I did leave a caption that was more for “marketing” tactic, but still spoke to the point of the image….that this flower left me #speechless as does life, sometimes.
When I think back to that first post I uploaded to @itsprettybylori, that feeling of making a difference in defining beauty as so much more then the nuances of what is happening in the moment, was so important me. But it has taken me some time to build of the gumption to share how I define beauty — and yet it is still relatively superficial…I think sharing my beauty tips on Youtube and Instagram has helped build my self-confidence, but my bashfulness has always been something that got in the way of the difference I could make in the world. I haven’t lived a super crazy life… but I do have some really great nuggets of experience that I think would help others. I know it would have certainly helped the young Lori of so many years ago. Although, I do have to say, she did get me to where I am today…. So here it is. My first blog post of It’s Pretty By Lori. I hope you enjoy it. Let’s see what happens when I press publish.
This is shorten version of the original post to what was my blog, It’s Pretty By Lori at Blogspot.com. It sort of explains my hope for this community.
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