Seek a Little Beauty.

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.

I Wish...

I just saw a production of Into the Woods.

I'm obsessed with this show. It has so much latent meaning, a working walking talking singing metaphor in fairy-tale archetypical garb.

Everyone wishes for something, but even when you get what you wanted, it's never what you expected. So you realign yourself and move on, forever seeking the equilibrium that comprises your happily ever after.

"I Wish," say Cinderella and Jack and the Baker and his wife, and even the Witch.

It makes you think. What is it you wish for?

What fills up your star-gazing mind? When you blow on that dandelion.

When each penny plunges to the bottom of the well,

when you've chucked little 1 and 2 cent euros at Bernini's Trevi,

what thought does the coin carry with it?

There are few things as desperate as a dreamer who has lost their dream.

There are those who live and breathe the hope of life, who see each chapter in life as new pages in a fairy tale. (I am one of those people. Are you?) Sometimes it's hard to see that first star in the night sky. Sometimes you forget that that little penny stands for more than legal tender of the realm. Sometimes you just forget what the dream is, and you have to find it again. (I think that's where I am right now.)

You know what's nice though?

"Hard to see the light now, just don't let it go. Things will come out right now, we can make it so. Someone is on your side; No one is alone."

pictures: Wish Jar by Bethany Howson, Into the Woods book cover, girl on swing by bazzabent at deviantART.com, Witch image by unknown illustrator, still from Disney's Pinnochio, dandelion girl from stumbleupon.com, still from Disney's Snow White, Cinderella illustration by A.H.Watson, still from La Dolce Vita, "Waiting 4 U 2 make a wish by ~mojofire at deviantART, scrabble wish from guerrillanerd.blogspot, friends in the window from tweexcore.tumblr.

The Plan.

Gotta be brief.

Been wildly busy, but how I ache for the whimsy of the blog world.

So here's the plan,

for the immediate future, and for the undetermined long-term:

They say a picture says a thousand words. So these two say 1,006 and 1,004, respectively.

Patience Has Never Been My Finest Virtue.

Oh the WAITING.

Still waiting for Springtime. She seems uninterested in descending upon New England. And that leaves us Spring-Is-In-Our-Blood types feeling conflicted and off-balance.

Damn all this snow that refuses to melt. Shoo! Away with you!

Be Gone!!

Despite their inherent preciousness, one does not survive on the social interaction of 4-year-olds alone.

This pre-school teacher is in need of warmer weather, venture-int0-the-night weather. Honestly, sometimes a girl just wants to feel like a girl, to exercise her Come-Hither eyes and make sure they work after all that hibernation.

Besides, how am I supposed to dance in the pouring rain if I have to worry about pneumonia?

So come on, Spring. Rear your glorious head and send me some sunshine, some budding blooms, a chance to pack away the winter coat and wear open-toed shoes. Is it so much to ask?

If you don't come soon, I'm going to set out to find you elsewhere...

"It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember,

that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside--but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond--only a glimpse--and heard a note of unearthly music."

I've just finished reading a book. A wonderful, whisk-you-way-type book.

Growing up, I relished each book in L.M.Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, both the first time I read them in the fifth grade, and again when I reread them in High School. Needing a romantic, old-fashioned, beautifully written, inspirational escape, I ventured to the library last week and selected a well-loved copy of Emily of New Moon, the first in another series by L.M.Montgomery.

After stealing a few moments to read a few pages despite my other obligations, I had no doubt I would not be disappointed.

"This moment came rarely--went swiftly, leaving her breathless with the inexpressible delight of it. She could never recall it--never summon it--never pretend it; but the wonder of it stayed with her for days. It never came twice with the same thing. To-night the dark boughs against that far-off sky had given it. It had come with a high, wild note of wind in the night, with a shadow wave over a ripe field, with a greybird lighting on her window-sill in a storm, with the singing of "Holy, holy, holy" in church, with a glimpse of the kitchen fire when she had come home on a dark autumn night, with the spirit-like blue of ice palms on a twilit pane, with a felicitous new word when she was writing down a "description" of something. And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty."

photos: Room with a View by Emily Rachel, book in window from auberginesea.tumblr.com, Emily of New Moon cover by L.M. Montgomery, key from dontwanttoseethesunanymore.tumblr.com, Stars all seem to weep by ~Be-at from deviantart

I'm Ready.

It hit the glorious 60's today. I'm ready for Summer. Mostly, the beach. And being tan again. Even just moderately-un-pale would be good. Here's to the impending Endless Summer, may it race toward us with the speed of a million famished seagulls heading for the trashbin by the hotdog vendor.

photos: Swim Dress by Tom Palumbo, image from kingdomcum.tumblr, vintage pin-up ad, image from Skinny Bitch, vintage image from stumbleupon.com, dress image by Tina Pelletier, vintage image from June 1951 LIFE, vintage image from January 1963 Vogue