Beauty demands our attention.
It deserves our attention.
Janelle McCulloch recently wrote about “quiet beauty” and how it kept her going through the last year; her words truly resonated with me. Beauty, whatever kind is my therapy during these crazy months we have all experienced. You can read what she wrote on Instagram here.
“Quiet Beauty”, what a wonderful expression.
Beauty can be caught in a glimpse, in action, with a word or an experience. It doesn’t have to be grand or all-encompassing but a small dose every day is like therapy to me. We need to remember our own small worlds can be as beautiful as our global lives once were. I don’t need to board a plane, catch a train or hike a trail to steal my fix of beauty. Searching for and acknowledging our own “quiet beauty” is the way to open our hearts and nourish our minds when our familiar pastimes are challenged.
How do you find beauty in your everyday?
Observing comes easy to me. Taking note can be as determined as a particular search or as random as a gaze outwards. It can have no rhyme or reason and conversely, I can be looking with great intent. Searching for my small dose of beauty takes me through my most-loved books and down the rabbit hole of social media. Arranging and re-arranging florals is a must-have tonic for me as is studying the architectural elements in my hood. Every day there is a new building to discover – the ornamentation, the paint colours, the garden plantings.
I never really think it matters what we notice as long as we have our eyes wide open.
How often we move through life looking but without seeing? It happens more than we credit.
Planning what we cook and how we lay the table can be a shot of beauty if we let it. Finding beauty can require personal effort as much as it can be a lazy love affair. I’ve looked through my wardrobe and analysed what pieces I find to be beautiful and why. They may be languishing quietly but I am still appreciating their loveliness. Our sustaining skincare rituals can carry us to another world. Words and their transporting power sustain me. Reading is the greatest pleasure and that alone can fill the beauty banks indefinitely. In films, the characters and interiors do much the same and are a never-ending antidote when we need a fix.
The possibility of beauty is never-ending.
Walking to the kitchen just now to make a cup of tea and I have crossed paths with so much I love. Beauty is not only in appearance it is in the memories it evokes and the potential to transport. Not to mention the beauty we share with friends and family.
Grand and lavish occasions are beautiful but not necessarily where we find true beauty; for all their intent, extravagance and exception they are not really the winners. Stolen glimpses, intimate moments and profound appreciation are what counts. xv
A Different Kind of Therapy
janelle mcculloch’s beautiful books here
italian chic || may i come in || cabana || the big book of chic
country, city, coast || houses, gardens, people || new york splendour || chateau life
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