The World Appears Beautiful

Don't think of leaving

Fresh snow falling this morning in big, lazy flakes. A text from a friend at the opposite end of the valley reports surprise and wonder at its appearance overnight; she is already planning the extra time to shovel her walk and dig her car out. Another friend a couple hours to the north—less time if I could sprout sweeping, ravenly wings, as I often dream of accomplishing, and fly there—writes of her morning, "It's actually more snow than I realized! Wow late winter! May we make up for lost time!" This announcement comes with pictures; a buried picnic table in her backyard and snow piled up against a front window, blue in the light of morning that is specific to this time of year.

I'm late writing today because I'd rather watch the snow. I filled my bird feeders and the red-wing blackbirds—multiplying daily it seems, both in numbers and song—with their dark feathers and red epaulets are gorgeous against all the pure white. As is the red face and chest of the house finch. Even the drab LBJs are lovely, their various shades of browns and rusts and yellows in evidence, which says nothing of the bright speckles and colors of the northern flickers.

My mom texts me. "Looks like winter is finally here just in time for spring," she says.

We've not had much winter this year in this part of Montana, so the sight of snow, even this moderate amount, is welcome, particularly to those of us who love and look forward to it. I am reminded of this quote from Ken Keffer, author of Earth Almanac, who writes, "Embracing the ebb and flow of the seasons is like welcoming a friend back after an extended absence.”

All too often it seems like we have two seasons: gray and fire. That's an exaggeration but there is more of both than I remember growing up, and fewer stars too. If my habits of the past couple weeks are any indication, this is where the rant would begin. I'd go on about how we are all responsible for this changing climate, the energy we burn to light up the night that extinguishes the dark, glorious sky. Rave about the choices we make that hurtle us closer to the point of no return. We've probably already passed it, I don't know. But I determined after last week, and the stress and anxiety that comes from being so wrapped up in outrage after outrage, that this week I wanted to write something beautiful. Revel in my friendships and my acquaintances and the health of my family and the kindnesses that come my way daily. Because they do, every day.

But one doesn't determine to "write something beautiful" and have it just happen. It's usually the opposite. The late Eduardo Galeano expresses a sentiment about utopia that mirrors my chasing of beauty by design, when he writes, “She’s on the horizon ... I go two steps, she moves two steps away. I walk ten steps and the horizon runs ten steps ahead. No matter how much I walk, I’ll never reach her. What good is utopia? That’s what: it’s good for walking.”

But I keep looking for beauty and here She is. The fresh snow in the morning. The brightness of my birdy neighbors. The clouds breaking so I can see the mountains yonder. Maybe just writing about these sights in my simple language is all the beauty I need to express.

Last summer I was on a pilgrimage to visit all the Indian reservations in Montana. I wrote about that trip HERE, in fact. But after the first day, which was stressful and the first real hot day of summer, I set out on day two to a much cooler, cloudier morning. In the early hours, deep into the east of the state, westbound on Highway 200 to another highway that would take me north to Fort Peck, I was listening to Carl Safina's wonderful book, Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace. In one of those weird coincidences, like thinking of a friend and suddenly a text from them arrives, or an email, I was passing a sign for "Beauty Creek" just as Safina, personally narrating his book, said the following:

"The world appears beautiful so that the living may love being alive in it."

Think about that. Read it again.

"The world appears beautiful so that the living may love being alive in it."

It was too great a coincidence, the juxtaposition of creek and words. I pulled over and replayed the line over and over until I got it correct in my notebook.

The same notebook where I jotted this line down from the poet Ada Limón, one of my absolute favorites, who wrote somewhere:

"A friend says the best way to love the world is to think of leaving."

I think of leaving the world all the time, but not today. Today, and for as many days as I can string together, I am instead going to love being alive in it, if only because of its beauty. All of our beauties.