The Accidental, State-Funded Installation

There is an intersection I go through nearly every day of my life here in Houston. It's as I pass under Highway 59, aka the Southwest Freeway. At night, as I'm coming home from the day job that is sometimes an evening job, I usually have to stop at this intersection. It's a very urban scene, all white concrete under the overpass, not anything particularly striking in and of itself. Any city dweller sees the like daily.

This intersection's stoplights are angled in such a way that both, the light facing on-coming traffic and the light facing the one-way traffic coming from my left, gets reflected on the concrete. Some of the light falls under the overpass, on those lines that look like gigantic corrugated cardboard. The play of the green, the yellow, the red against the deeper, black shadows always holds my interest. I find the colors on the concrete somewhat soothing, maybe a bit eerie, but peaceful. There's not much traffic some nights, and there's a feeling of--I hesitate to use the word--intimacy, just me waiting for my green and the changing hues on the concrete. It's like a light installation project just for me and it makes me smile.

I tell you, there is beauty everywhere.