I've been thinking a lot about accessible beauty this summer. After a recent move into the city, my eyes have had to adjust to the particular beauty of urban spaces and how to hunt for wonder.
My appreciation has grown for architecture, varied landscaping styles, sunsets over city streets, the sound of crickets in the hot summer heat, endless dogs and families, and community spaces committed to the preservation of beauty—city parks, and galleries. Beauty and suffering are ever-present here, clear for the eye to see.
I have spent most of my life in more rural settings, however, with the luxury of winding country roads, open prairies, dark starry skies, wooded trails, daily sunrises and sunsets to bookend my days, and silence, oh the silence—just outside my door. In spaces like this, it's easy to pretend that the world is at peace.
Seeking urban beauty requires a bit more effort, vigilance, and sometimes a stretch of the imagination, but that's typically not a problem for me. I'm a woman who loves to work a little for a reward. Who finds joy in finding beauty in rough people and places.
Crab legs dipped in lemon butter taste better because you have to snap the shells to get to the meat. Mountain peaks are more breathtaking because of the steep and winding climb to get there. But something in me wants beauty to be right outside my window; always there, with me wherever and however I am.
It would be nice not to have to squint, work, save, sweat, or sift for beauty; to be pursued by it instead of being its pursuer. This is a part of my story.
During a recent trip to Zion National Park, my husband and I stopped by a coffee shop nestled outside the park, with the mountains in the window.
As the baristas handed me our smoothies, I asked, "Do you have to pinch yourselves every day as you drive to work? Do you ever look out the window while you're pouring coffee and think, wow, I get to look at this all day?" One of them looked down and then back up at me. "At first I did, yeah. But now I've been here for three months and I'm used to it." I was shocked at first, but I get it.
What if it's not about rural versus urban beauty; access versus effort?
It could be that you need more open spaces; the feeling of being alone without the hypervigilance. It could be more community spaces; the feeling of belonging and the peace that comes from knowing help is in reach.
Whatever the beauty is, and however it is found—right outside your window or across the world—may you know yourself well enough to chase what you need and be held by what you have.
| If the beauty you need is to be in more community spaces. Heal & Become is narrative focused trauma care group for women like you, looking back to earlier life scenes and exploring the ways those stories have shaped the way you experience yourself and others today. |
|---|
