I believe in my bones that there are little, tiny, almost impossible-to-notice moments and things and experiences in life that are left along our personal roadside as gifts -- things that enrich us and make us feel more alive and happy to be part of the world.
Some of those things are created on purpose, and some of them just happen. I'm not talking about the obvious things -- the love of our families, the laughter of children -- the things that we all love and take for granted. I'm talking about the things that you have to be looking for.
So here I want to offer you, maybe for a few weeks, a series of vignettes -- little , detailed descriptions or stories that could go unnoticed but feed me on a deeper level. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, those are the things and the moments that make life a joy and not a chore -- even if you're alone or struggling or suffering or just too busy to care. It's the beauty that gets us through, the moments of sudden rushes of longing and joy, of feeling the beauty and wanting to soak up as much of it as you can.
So ... here we go ...
If you never have, go right now and listen to Bach's Cello Suite Number One. Now, I'm a classical music nerd and I know that sort of thing doesn't float a lot of peoples' boats, but this is something special. It's beautiful on a deeper level -- it speaks to you. It says things -- green things about life and the sun and trees and grass and it's almost like you can feel yourself being more a part of the world itself when you just close your eyes and listen. It makes you smile, it almost forces you to close your eyes, because the notes are so intriguing -- the way they move and flow and slide off of one another -- you don't want anything else to interrupt your hearing of it. Right at the very beginning, it grabs you -- it's really the introduction that does it -- and you just can't wait for it to continue. Seriously -- even if you've never liked any music but Merle Haggard or Metallica, go to YouTube and find it. Yo-Yo Ma playing, if at all possible. He's talented and gifted and adds layers of meaning to the music he plays.
Last weekend I decided to just hop in the car with my dog and drive up to our family's place in Missouri -- The Police is on an extended trip out of the country so I was alone, and I borrowed my mom's convertible for the 6-hour drive. I know I've talked about this a lot before, but there is just nothing to wake me up inside and make me feel happy and at peace like a long drive along country roads. The kind that wind and curve and throw you unexpected little surprises, like roadside vegetable stands or horses grazing nearby. I drove through a few tiny, tiny towns that smelled entirely of honeysuckle. And the grass and the fields and the trees were all such a bright green. I love driving by a cotton or rice field and seeing the almost moving-pattern effect that the curving rows make as you speed past them -- like the wind is actually moving the ground itself. And sometimes I turned up my music loud and sang at the top of my lungs, and sometimes I just listened to the wind rushing past my ears. And I know it's not much -- a drive through fields on a country road. If you live anywhere in rural America you likely do it everyday -- but they're so beautiful in the summer. The contrast of the bright green and the bright blue where they meet the horizon -- the smell of the grass and the dirt, even the clouds of dust that the farming equipment throw up against the sky. I've been in pretty much all the world's major cities, and even though I say this on repeat too, they don't make me feel quite this way. Only the fields can do that.
There's a house that I drive by every day on my way to work that has the most beautiful rose bushes. A whole row of them, lined right up near the street. All different colors, but so perfectly tended and perfectly shaped and giving up such amazing blooms. I've often been envious of them as I've driven by, wondering who took such good care of them and whether or not I could get that person to come to my house and breathe life into my sad and disorganized rose bushes. I apparently have rose envy. Is that a thing? But more often I just enjoy them. Every morning I look forward to passing them and seeing the new blooms, and I wonder about their planter. And today I saw him. He was walking from one bush to the next, carefully inspecting each bud -- picking off stray leaves and studying them intently. Whether he is the one that planted them or not, this was someone who cared. But that's not even the best part. As he checked on the roses, he was carrying his dog. A tiny little white dog that looked perfectly comfortable just hanging out in his arms. It was a moment that dozens of people witnessed as they drove by him, right there near a busy street, but I wondered -- how many of them noticed that here was a person taking the time to care for two different forms of life that can never do him any favors in return? It was beautiful and it made me feel happy to be alive and to have been right there at that exact time, even if he never even knows who I am or that I exist. The little white dog and the bright red and pink and yellow and orange roses, and this person who obviously saw to it that they all flourished. So every day, but so important.
"It was when I was happiest that I longed most ... the sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing ... to find the place where all the beauty came from." (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces)
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P.S. If you get me on this level and you have a moment that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it. I'm cool now and I tweet things on the Twitter -- follow me @CN_ShannonH.
sharris@blythevillecourier.com