Category: Non-Fiction

I often find beauty when I’m not actively seeking it. It’s like glancing sideways at a star. I take my dog out for a walk in the frosty January morning and look up to see brilliant streaks of pink and orange announce the rising of the sun.

I believe beauty is something we each have deep within and surrender to, rather than create. It is the affirmation of the self that loves and hates, and lives well and badly, at his/her/its own discretion. And anything created out of such beauty moves people, sometimes to the extent of changing their lives so that they will embark on the journey back to their own beauty.

I wept when I heard Brahms’ Requiem. Beauty pierced me, tears flowed. My stomach dropped when I watched the Joffrey Ballet. The empty space was filled with awe. We think our responses to beauty are personal, individual, but they are not. The shared experience of beauty links us to other humans.

I’ve been collecting moments of beauty, each one a loop interlocking with the next, like the construction-paper chains I made in childhood and again with my daughter. The most durable kinds of beauty, for me, arc from light to dark and back again. When a late-afternoon sun paints bone-colored tree trunks against a dark gray sky.

I see it when your face softens and you whisper sweet words. When you think you’re alone with God and you lift your hands in awe, I see it. When your hand touches with love, beauty shines.