One day, a few year's back, I was having one of those "desperate moments." You know the ones. When the Mean Reds sink into your being and compromise your soul.
I don't know that everyone experiences the Mean Reds. And I tend to think that people who find themselves running to an unknown in an attempt to escape yet another unknown, people like Miss Golightly, tend to encounter them more often.
Anyway, on this particular day, when the Mean Reds were lurking and leeching, I called my mother.
Now, mothers (the good ones, anyway), have this second sense about their children. They think about you 1o seconds before the phone rings with your call. They pick up the phone and before you've said a word, they know what your mood is- they've picked up your state of mind from the silent atmosphere that filters through the phone line when you're taking a breath to speak.
Well, she knew. And at conversation's end, she told me: "Do something absolutely beautiful tomorrow. It will make you feel better."
The next day I woke to torrents of rain. Don't get me wrong, I adore a rainstorm. But it severely limits your ability and motivation to seek what is Beautiful beyond your dripping threshold. So instead of channelling Gene Kelly,
I opened my little computer, and I Googled. Yes. I Googled "Something Absolutely Beautiful." It was a desperate attempt, and like most desperate attempts, it worked.
I found Absolutely Beautiful Things, the brilliant site of a marvelous Australian interior decorator, Anna Spiro. I wasn't big on blogs, and hadn't before found much merit in trolling through someone else's online whimsies. And this was the day it changed. Anna's rejuvinatingly pink site, packed full of simple, classic, individual design ideas was like an outlet to functional beauty. For this quirky beauty-obsessed girl, its discovery couldn't have come at a better time.
That's the beginning of a story, of how I started hesitantly seeking same-mindedness out there in the blog world, trying to eschew my distaste of the word "blog," and my dislike of passive-aggressive online journaling in the effort to find The Somethings Absolutely Beautiful with which to bolster my soul and spirit. It was about a year later that I started Gloriosity-
I don't know really why I started blogging, (yet another unknown in my life), but I'm sure it had something to do with effecting the Perpetuation of Beauty, just as much for myself as for anyone else who happens upon this page.
And a banner moment in my post-self-evincing blog life was stumbling onto Miss Caroline Cakewise and her life-giving Sparkles and Crumbs.
It may be a bit presumptuous to so adore a person whom one has never met, but this Glorious Lady's posts have been known to act as balloons to buoy, shovels to dig out, glitter to transform, and even balm to soothe.
Avail yourself of some SparkleCake. You won't be sorry.
Now, about those Mean Reds. Oh, they are back. How they return, incessantly. It's Springtime, my favorite season, budding promise bursting into blossoming reality all over the world.
Mother Nature speaks out unequivocally. Snows and ices and frigidity be damned. Beneath that frost-weary earth lies life and energy and possibility. And mirrored in my own life is possibility as well.
Too much of it.
Forgive me if this sounds ridiculous: I love so many things, I am good at so many things. How on God's Green Earth am I supposed to make a choice? Every year, I set forth a just-one-more-year plan. And as the plan nears expiration, the anxiety sinks back in. Whatever will be next?
Fickleness and changeability is in my genetic make-up, I think. What about for you, dear reader? Are you a magnificent tree, setting in roots, blooming in gorgeousness, growing and stretching and manifesting your brilliance in one well-loved place, providing shelter and shade and oxygen and boughs in which to climb to the heavens?
Or are you the lark in the branches, nesting for just a moment before riding the winds of change to the next far-off destination, soaring high and darting low, seeking protection in firm tree-like things when the rains come down, but preferring a glowing, luminous, sunny day to play fetch with Zephyrus, Notus, Eurus, and Boreas? Is your life a concise statement, deep and resonant, or is it a run-on sentence of multivalent contradictions?
Both are beautiful, I think. Both have their challenges. But I don't know that you can be one and the other.
For me, it is clear, flying has always been the only option.
But to where, and how, and for what purpose? Questions without answers bring Mean Red moments. And I know Paul's brilliant freedom speech, flung at poor Holly, backwards and forwards.
But does he think she has a choice? Does he think she can change the way she is?
George Axelrod, BaT's brilliant screenwriter, certainly thought so. But Capote? No, the equally brilliant Capote knew better.
Which brings me here. You know, red is my favorite color. Funny.
But when in the midst of the Mean Reds, one needs to seek a little Beauty. I just finished L.M.Montgomery's Emily series, a true testament to the power of Gloriosity. In it, a dispirited yet hopeful Emily quotes Wordsworth.
"After all, freedom is a matter of the soul. 'Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.'"
And it's true.
Though, with apologies to Mr. W,
I would replace "Nature" with "Beauty."
Beauty never did betray the heart that loved her.
For Holly, Beauty was at Tiffany's...
Seek a Little Beauty, darlings. Seek a Little Beauty and She will pull you through.
