Forcing Ourselves to Find Beauty

Take Pen to Paper: Edition 97

Aug 01, 2024

Hello Readers!

I’m sure you have experienced the coincidence of noticing unrelated events that follow the same theme in what you read, watch, or experience. Isn’t repetition of ideas part of serendipity?

Whatever you call it, this happened to me not long ago.

In this newsletter:

Watching man’s destruction of nature.
Be open to receiving beauty.
Choosing the mindset to visualize.

Man’s Mark on the World

As I watch the destruction of what once was the neighborhood’s woods, I am challenged to find the beauty in it.

I wrote about the woods being cleared for the addition of seven new houses in Take Pen to Paper, Edition 81. We are five months into the development process. It’s been quite disruptive visually and auditorily, especially since there hasn’t been a house built in the neighborhood in 20 years.

There was nothing special about these eight acres. They were just green and shady. I didn’t even walk in them. I like to avoid ticks and red bugs (or chiggers, depending on where you are from).

The area was a major draw for wildlife. Now, the deer have made themselves scarce. I still see a few rabbits. And, of course, the owls are gone. We are hoping the owls will return in late winter to nest in the woods behind our house.

I’m getting used to looking at the construction. I walk by it most days and drive by it when I leave the house. It’s the view from my front window. The view alone is a big change, and not for the better.

Teach Yourself to Find the Beauty

While watching the trees topple across the street, I was reading Geraldine Brooks’ Pulitzer Prize winner March.

In the novel, Brooks builds on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women by envisioning Mr. March’s experiences in the Civil War.

At the beginning of the novel, Mr. March writes to Marmee,

Do you recall the marbled endpapers in the Spenser that I used to read to you on crisp fall evening just as this? If so, then you, my dearest one, can see the sky as I saw it here tonight, for the colors swirled across the heavens in just such happy profusion.

Then March explains to the reader that he doesn’t tell his wife he sees those swirls in the eddies of the blood-filled river from a recent battle because,

I promised her that I would write something every day, and I find myself turning to the obligation when my mind is troubled. For it is as if she were here with me for a moment, calming hand resting lightly upon my shoulder. Yet I am thankful that she is not here, to see what I must see, to know what I am to know. And with this thought I exculpate my censorship; I never promised I would write the truth.

Mr. March forces himself to write about beauty, to keep the truth of the horrors he is experiencing from his wife.

Then, in a matter of days, I read Clemency Burton-Hill’s Another Year of Wonder and listened to the piece of classical music for the day. In her introduction to Frederic Chopin’s “Berceuse in D flat major, op. 57”, she relates the story of poet Edward Thomas keeping a war diary during World War I in France on the Western Front.

Against a context of horror that is all but unimaginable to most of us, his writing reveals a soul still open to receiving beauty, and that in itself becomes something profoundly redemptive. After a terrible night of trench warfare,…he manages to observe, with somehow sharpened senses: ‘Beautiful was Arras yesterday coming down from Beaurains and seeing Town Hall ruin white in sun like a thick smoke beginning to curl…”

I am in no way saying that clearing land to build new houses compares to the horrors of war in any way.

But imagine being open to finding beauty in the midst of the horrors of war. Many people have done and can do that. This tells us that, at the very least, those of us who live in peaceful areas can find some good and beauty in our surroundings.

Choosing a Mindset that Sees the Beauty

Which brings me back to my neighborhood.

Your mindset is something you can change. That is what I am trying to do with what I see in the neighborhood.

My neighborhood friends often join me on my morning walk. (I wrote about making friends in the neighborhood in Edition 82.) Walking with them gives me a lot of practice in maintaining a positive mindset. One of them has a negative view of almost everything. I keep hoping my positivity will overflow and influence their thinking.

When I look at the construction sight, I don’t think about how it was. It’s never going back to how it was. I visualize two more cul-de-sacs to add to my walking route with completed houses, trees, bushes, and flowers.

I know I will see beauty. It’s just a matter of time.

Can’t you just imagine it?

The view from my window before and after. S.G.S. Abel

7 Days, 7 Thoughts on Gratitude and Good:

I recommend March by Geraldine Brooks, but it is nothing like Little Women. Like all of Brooks’ novels, it is well-researched, drawing on historical accounts and the Alcott family writings and diaries. Where Little Women ends with thoughts of a happy ending, March leaves us with the devastation of war and the wounds that take decades and centuries to heal. Even my husband thought it was a good read.
I recommend (again) Clemency Burton-Hill’s Year of Wonder and Another Year of Wonder. Whether you know nothing about classical music or want to go more in-depth, these books are great starting points.
A quote: “How the world is full of signs and wonders that come and go, and if you are lucky you might see them.” -Helen Macdonald, from H is for Hawk.
I am grateful for seeing repetition in what I read, watch, and experience. Maybe it’s not a coincidence. I like to think I’m being told to pay attention.
Matt Hogan, perhaps my favorite newsletter author, wrote this about paying attention to what repeatedly comes up. He talks about redundancy in writing.
It’s good to have strategies for dealing with the negative events that we can not control.
There are scientific benefits to using positive visualization. This article explains what they are and how you can practice.

Thank you for reading. This week, take the time to be open to receiving beauty in unexpected places.

Until next time,

💚

Susan

What is something in your environment that you have difficulty keeping a positive mindset about? Leave a comment. I would love to read about it.

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