Beauty @ MindSay

Quiet is like music to me.

Music, on its own, is delightful.  I live and breathe music.  Always have.  Hopefully, I always will.

I feel music in ways, I think, most people can’t.  I say “most people,” because I am fully aware there are those who speak music to such an extent that I envy them.  Often, they are musicians.

I am not a musician.

I am merely an appreciator of music.

To be precise, I am an appreciator of beauty.  True; I am also continuously aware of the ugliness.  Even within great beauty, there are murmurs of dark despair; with every flood of brilliant, bright light, there are deep shadows.  This is simply how I am and who I am.  I can accept this. 

However, there are moments in my life, thankfully more frequent than I prefer to admit, when I’m absolutely captivated by a scene – or a sound – and I can barely breathe, much less think.  All I can do is surrender myself to the beauty of the moment.

They are never the same.  The moments may be similar (how often do I revel in the colorful panorama of a sunset?), but they are never the same.  They usually catch me off guard.  But would it be as beautiful if I were preparing myself for it?  Would I appreciate it as much if I knew it was coming?  Would I be able to enjoy it for what it is instead of comparing it to my disappointment in what it could have been?

I once read in a book, written by someone rather wise and long dead, that the melody is the only thing that matters.  That pure melody is what is key, and we shouldn’t muck things up with harmony (I realize this is a vast paraphrase, but it was many years ago since I read this, and I can’t remember where I read it, or I would look it up).

I just remember being deeply disturbed that this bastion of wisdom could say such a thing.

For it is in the harmonies where I dance.

Melody is grand, don’t get me wrong.  It envelopes the entire movement and stands strong as a steady guide throughout the tapestry of sound.  It ties everything together.  It is the outline.

But harmony is the color.

And music without color is soulless.

Quiet is like music to me.

Deep quiet, where nothing moves, nothing whispers, and you realize that you are the only person in this room, right now, and perhaps forever, but you don’t really care where you are or who you are or about anything else in the world.  It has all vanished behind the cloud of beauty.  Or is that the curtain of the world is finally stripped away to reveal the beauty that has been hidden all along?

The quiet seeps into my very marrow, my heart tries to soften its loud thud-thud-thud so as to not disrupt the drowning sea of silence, and I drink deep.

In the quiet, I hear harmonies.

And my soul dances.

There is so, so much that is beautiful in this world.

My work, my life, my dream, is about helping people. About taking something that's not so great, and healing it. Sometimes all I can do is listen to someone hurting, but contrary to the implied definition, even that's not a passive experience. Unless I'm having a selfish day, I'm always looking for something to give, something to do, some way to help.

Until the moment when I break out of the trees, and my words are stolen by a painted sky, over a forest so dark it's been reduced to two dimensions. The lake carries deep secrets of beauty under a glassy surface, a surface that permits no entry because disturbing it would be beyond criminal. There's a line of amber in the middle of the shadows, revealing that part of that flat black treeline is an island. Beauty and darkness blending into something beyond the definitions of each.

The morning I go out for a walk in the mist on the shore. The waves are crashing, running in and out as though searching for something in the gravel. The brightly wet rocks slide from under my weight, and the sky is impassively gray, too great to be aware of the tiny crustaceans that skitter and slide higher up the shore, demanding safety. The whole world seems to be waiting for something, and maybe it's just for me to leave, so that it can celebrate in its riotous joy. A promise of a terrific storm later. Can a storm have emotion? It seems to promise beauty and emotion, but in such a way to defy both terms.

The hushed open-air cathedral of the trees, with the long grass that invites all and tells nothing. High enough on the hills that the wind is your companion, and only a hawk soars over you. Dusty leaves enjoy their new settings, and the smell of the woods dances tantalizingly past your eyes. Lying down in that long soft grass, the earth accepting your weight, gazing up at the tall pale trees. There's a song here from before we knew notation, and so we'll never be able to take down the notes. Elusive and welcoming. Beautiful.

Only fifteen feet from the surface, and it's a totally different world. The floor is carved by a different master, the ceiling is in constant motion. A valley so deep that darkness seems to bleed out of it, reaching to pull you in and hide you forever, whispering the secrets that will make you forget the sun. Startled life that darts away from your form into better hiding. Sound you can't remember when you break the surface again. Beautiful. Beautiful.

There's nothing I can do, no words I can say. This was a place where I'm not going to be serving, where I'm not going to be helping or making anything better. The only thing I can possibly do here is view, drink, perceive. I'll be something of a holding receptacle for this moment.

That's all I can do - sit, listen with my eyes. Why? I won't have the words to tell anyone else about it later. I can't capture the sound, the taste of the air and convert it. I'm not a painter or a sculptor, to be able to convey this. Even the act of taking a picture would seem to interrupt something, to turn the focus back on the little person down here.

I'm not sure I know why. Maybe it's something I need to see to be all right. Maybe it's just because to see this and walk away without taking it in would be completely wrong. Maybe I'll be able to come back here and bring someone else with me. Maybe it's something that will teach me to love better, somehow. I don't know. I just know that this is beautiful, and I need to take it in.

So I have NEVER worn a bathing suit because I have never been comfortable in my own skin. I actually have scars from some skin infection I had as a child. I also have dark spots where the follicles are. After shaving, you can see the lil dots as I call them. Quite embarassing looking. I look at pple at the beach and just wonder how EVERYONE has spotless perfect skin. My face (THANK GOD) is good but my body is just scarred up. Any advice? Is it because I shave? I don't moisturize my body on a regular basis either. I also have sensitive skin and have a tendency of lathering a lot because if my skin doesn't feel SQUEEKY clean, I go crazy! I have to be CLEAN like a dish. Help!