Chasing Beauty

When I was a kid, life was sort of chaotic. We moved the first time when I was four. We moved again when I was six, and again when I was seven and again when I was nine. My parents always rented and tried to find the right place, but it didn’t stick until they actually bought a house for the first time. We settled in and for a brief moment, things seemed normal.

At ten, my father had his second bypass surgery. The first time had been when I was four, also around the time we moved. When I was eleven, I skipped grade six and started middle school in seventh. It was a tough transition and I wasn’t used to the new dynamics, of much more than just the academics. I also contracted mono that year, resulting in multiple episodes of sore throats that seemed as though they were nothing more than attempts to stay out of school. Since his was an upside I couldn’t deny, it took them two years to figure out I wasn't lying but it was actually a symptom of the same illness that sent me to the couch falling asleep after school, and then into insomnia at night. They say you get over it, but in all honesty, I’m not sure. I’m still taking Ambien.

Around the same time I was diagnosed, my sister became pregnant with her first baby. From there, the rest is a blur. My dad worked from home, but never made money, my sister was an emotional basket-case, dealing with pregnancy and a broken heart and my mother was doing her damnedest to keep us all afloat, turning to work for relaxation and shopping for catharsis. Somewhere in there, I faded to a backdrop. Everyone was focused on supporting my sister, or my mom, or my father’s business and babysitting to boot. My parents had the usual connections to me through my activities, but as those filtered out and I got old enough to get around without them, my need grew less and my sisters grew more. I got a job to support myself and not be too much of a burden on a house that was already drowning in debt and denial.

Before all hell broke loose, I remember being maybe ten or eleven and sitting around one night with the family when a spontaneous moment of joy happened. I can’t remember why we were all together or what brought the moment about. But I remember the feel. My parents forgot their quick tempers and the resentments resulting from too much stress, my sister wasn’t the gloomy teenager, constantly bickering for attention and I wasn’t just the little girl to be tolerated, but once again, a part of something beautiful. We were a family, a collective of souls meant to help each other live out a life that is already so difficult.

It was as if a spell had fallen. The smiles were genuine, the laughter deep and releasing. I’m sure I didn’t understand the jokes, but I smiled and laughed because they were happy and when they were happy, I was happy. I remember basking in the glow of familial love, wishing it would never end, only the way a child can.

And then I had to pee. I held it as long as I could. Panic rose as the feeling grew. I shifted from side to side, my mind splintering between enjoyment and sheer torture. I stared at the bathroom, a mere six feet away, but I knew, the moment I left the magic would end. The clenched foreheads of survival would return, we remember how to bite at each other and defenses would be the better practice to grace and love. Those so much wiser and older than I, would return to their corners and I would get lost again, not yet privy to how sarcasm and bitterness worked to stave off guilt and pain.

Eventually I succumb and went to the bathroom, and sure enough, as I walked out, the retreat from armistice had already begun and more than a little crestfallen, I wandered my way back to the couch to resume my own retreat into someone else’s world. I shoved the disappointment and loss down, not understanding how people can be as close as a few inches, but really, a million miles away.

Last week I was driving home on a fairly misty day when I encountered beauty again. I came over the crest on Ygnatio Valley, back towards Concord around sunset. There are hills on either side with the “tri-cities” being visible on one side as you come either way. The sun was setting behind an overcast sky with low hanging dense clouds that look ominous, but didn’t have enough weight to deluge. The air was clear from an earlier rain, moist with left over drops bringing an extra bit of magnification to the views around me. The hills were golden without becoming brown, the sky a sort of steel/blue grey I can only describe as dynamic. I could feel the dimensions. The gold against the grey, against the great expanse… it was magnificent.

Sometimes language fails to capture what only the eye can see, or the ears can hear. We reach for phrases in a desperate attempt to articulate something that only the soul can interpret. And every once in a while, if you are lucky enough, in the most dull drum moments, this sort of connection to beauty, to life, to something more than just words on a page, grips you, shifting something deep down, then leaves just as quickly as it came. If you are really lucky and either caught off guard, or your heart has opened to see, you will involuntarily begin to cry, the beauty have knifed into a place long held back by your own set of demons.

On top of this small hill, with a monument to suburban life not far below, I found myself in the same sort of moment I did when I was a child with my family. I knew in a few short seconds I would come down the hill and the sight would be gone. My car would keep moving, the traffic around me refusing to let me slow or stop to drink in and quench my need for connection. I wanted to run into the sky, to wrap my arms around it, flinging myself into its great expanse, begging it to remain this beautiful forever. Echo my soul, my heart, my spirit like this, please, tomorrow, again and again… But beauty is like that. It’s bittersweet, knowing it will end.

There is a certain desperation I live my life with, an inherent fear that whatever good thing I am experiencing right at that moment will leave and I will never really know when the next beautiful moment will find me, or if it will. Everything always changed, and mostly, when it changed, it brought with it turmoil, pain, or more chaos. Things of beauty tend to bring with it a melancholy now, so I enjoy, mourning an inevitable loss.

I’ve carried this with me in many places and throughout many years, capping off my enjoyment, my sentiment, my heart, knowing the crush of disappointment, of grief. Paris, DC, Hawaii, sites tinged with sorrow. Times I have given in and trusted the joy to last, it hasn’t and it has seemed to only further the cycle of distrust and enmity. I sat in the Musee D'Orsey for three hours staring at a Monet one afternoon. I stared and stared and stared knowing I would never be able to explain it, or take a picture of it, or be able to bring it justice in any way, but also knowing, I needed that beauty.

I’m not sure what triggered, or what is to blame for why I feel the way I feel, and I really don’t care much, but I do wonder, is there a better way? Is there a way to be fully present to a world that was a gift to us, to a creation that is full of life and goodness and trust it will all be there again tomorrow? Can I look forward to moments of joy, or a present time of sorrow, or the conversation of a good friend and be fully present knowing it will end, but another will follow? I inherently doubt life beyond constant survival, but I also wonder, is there a way to live in a dynamic sort of grey? Dense clouds full of movement, expanding and collapsing with the air, with experience, ready to take the good and the bad, knowing, beauty will always win, your family will, one day move past its torment, memories of loss won’t always haunt and there are still sunsets to be enjoyed. I envey those that are able to do this, that live with a sort of abandon, not at all frightened at the fragility of life and community and goodness. I crave that sort of security, trust and consistency. I crave beauty, but know, until I let go, I will crave as a bottomless vat, always needing more and that brings about the question, will I ever be satisfied enough to stop running, or will I always be chasing beauty?