Take the time to make ordinary, utilitarian things pretty. This pretty manhole cover, for example, and many others like it (below) are scattered around Minneapolis. I pass it daily on walks. The city of Minneapolis could have just put down a metal grate to plug the hole. Instead, they planted a flag.
Such details are often overlooked, which is unfortunate. To see care and attention paid to the small things, implies the same care and attention was paid to the big picture as well.
Most of these can be found along the Nicollet Mall. If you spot one, it can be surprising. Oh, hello there! But then you notice another, and another, and before long, you’re on an Easter-egg hunt, ducking and dodging between the people who are trying to go about their day. Here’s another! A bunch of apples! Here’s another! A loon! And so on..
I am grateful (pun intended) that the City of Minneapolis saw to hide these cookies in plain sight, To brighten our day as we hit the pavement to work, or wait for the bus or maybe looking, and finding these details hiding in your utilitarian spaces that pull us out of our routine, and out of ourselves, to consider something larger.
