The day we awoke to a dark red, ashened sky a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to write from a one word prompt – Beauty.
Beauty
“Oh my God it’s so beautiful”, you are so beautiful, we are so beautiful. These words ring through me when I’m asked about beauty. Instant gasp, dipped in a reservoir of feeling that surpasses the body.
The dog that is God that I’m taking care of now, my little big gift of love, the greatest task I could think of; to be the guardian of such a sweet, calming spirit. Of course he takes care of me is the trade, an unspoken understanding in each other’s presence. I sit here in the most comfy chair imaginable, in someone else’s house I’m also taking care of.
This unexpected welcome, another light in the storm all around me, made mostly of wood; the essence of family, my family the trees that never let me down. I grieve for my giants who honor me with oxygen and protection, the hundreds of years that some of them have lived. I breathe in and taste their ashes, as I will for my loved ones when they die.
There is a fireplace here, to the right of my comfy chair as Teddy dog sleeps in my lap, and I realize I’ve had this. I’ve imagined a living room just like this, a place I’ve been in my mind that represents all that I’d love to find. I notice what I’ve been given, if even so fleetingly, and say thank you again to life.
As I lay my head back to rest it in the chair, Teddy lightly snoring and vibrating through me, in robe and socks, herbal tea to my side, ready to sip, I look out the window to the morning fog outside. Just white grey and green, only the trees can be seen, the survivors.
How many survivors of uglyness there are, all of us living and bursting through it. The unstoppable grace of forced surrender.
I’ve barely listened to music in the last few months, so strange and unlike me, as quiet soothes me now more than ever. Everything has changed, as we all ask, who am I really? But all I need do if a cry is in order, which it is almost daily it seems, is play ‘Let it Be”. Without fail every time, that same sensation, being smacked and shakened by beauty. A sound, a vision, chest expanse of feeling, and there it is again. A vastness of wisdom that hovers outside my thinking mind, touching something else to bring the tears.
What is it? There is no way of understanding while we remain here in this life, where it comes from that is without words to describe. That instant reaching down into the cellars of truth that pierces the heart and floods awe through.
Today I wonder why so few things pop up when I’m asked about beauty. Maybe it’s because I’m so moved all the time lately. A bluebird just hopped onto the deck outside! You see? The tightness of fear that I feel in the world, in the masked faces and shares and voices everywhere, in the expression of “help I don’t know what to do”. Such acute awareness of Living. There’s no turning back and no clear way forward. So we float in the smoke of limboland, in the tension of suspension above quicksand below.
I saw a man trying to break another world record, this time being the first to go highest of all. Up up in a balloon to the ceiling of Earth, then just past the borderline and into the stars. The breath of the trees was no longer there, as he floated on the precipice of space and no air. There he was, holding on now with just one arm, above the abyss of the planet below. Basecamp through his headphones says “anytime”, and suddenly, he let go. Just a man free falling from the great unknown, into his own arrival, down, down, down. As we all hold our breath, for a parachute that shows the way.
This is my life I think, as I watch him fall. Will he land? Will he survive? I don’t know, but I do. He touches ground, he made it. “We made it through” we will say, on the other side of all this. I don’t want to forget, the beauty of purgatory, as I hang in the clouds with the world and cry.
Lia Wilbourn 