Find It in Everything

Preface

I have always loved hearts. The way that one continuous line accomplishes the most extraordinary thing—it conveys love. It is a symbol of goodness. It doesn't have anything ambiguous about it. It is loud. It is confident.

I love this shape so much that I started seeing it everywhere. I would see it in a fragment of light. I would see it in a paper straw wrapper on the ground. I would see it in the fur of my dog. I would be looking into a glass display case of fish, and the tuna steak would unexpectedly have something heart-shaped about it, and it would make me happy.

I started taking pictures of these things, because it was a way to capture moments of magic. It wasn't me doodling on my binder, "I heart so-and-so." It was nature saying, "I love you." It was a scientifically explainable moment that generated the international symbol of love. It was someone's trash morphing into a message of hope for someone else who might need it.

Then one day a few years back I was discussing E.T., the film I had made when I was six, and someone mentioned E.T.'s big red heart, which sometimes glowed from inside him, and I had an epiphany. His heart wasn't necessarily shaped like a heart, but I remember that his puppeteers would always light it up at moments when E.T. felt happiness. And I wondered if, when I was an impressionable young girl, that big red light had jump-started my love affair with hearts.

I cannot say for sure what it is that has me so obsessed with them. I think it also has something to do with the fact that they have no negativity. They are just something we use to show love. Hearts are my beacons. I love them man-made and natural, young and old. Whenever and wherever I see the heart shape, a smile spreads across my face. The heart has an unbeatable romance when you discover one where you least expect it.

And that is why I try to find it in everything.