On Embracing The Art of Loveliness
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Everyone is familiar with love, but have you ever considered loveliness? More specifically, finding those life snapshots that make our hearts quiver? This art form is, I feel, integral to the human community, but so often overlooked for day to day worries. In all seriousness, the art of loveliness is, at first, a difficult skill to hone. It's a rough little art that requires as much practice as paints or words. Years go into developing the art of loveliness and it takes but moments to rip apart a lifetime's work.
Yet, I tell you: Never give up. As a sufferer of the mind, I try my damnedest to focus on that which is lovely. It keeps me in reveling in my own sanity - in sane, if you will. More specifically and importantly, it prevents me from wallowing in self pity as those who suffer from seasonal depression so often are wont to do.
To begin, it must be admitted that loveliness, like all other attributes in life (whether you like it or not), is infectious, so it is important to spread loveliness throughout all the corners of this earth. The "be infectious" concept might sound silly all typed out in black and white, but attitudes spread faster than the worst virus. So yes, for my own sake as well as for every flickering soul who passes by my frame, I try to focus on loveliness in all its many forms, some of which I will spell out for you now.
There is the loveliness of love: when you love someone so much that it wedges itself into each rib bone and tries to crack you open. This is most commonly associated with romantic love, but brothers, sisters, parents, and friends can victimize you with this form of love as well.
There is the loveliness of loss: when love has that little "d" on the end and your brain cells ache and your chest wells inside you and you feel like you have a climatic hangover of the emotions. It doesn't seem lovely, but it so very much is. It is lovely because it connects us as humans. Loss means to have loved, and to have loved once is better than to have never loved at all. Loss means learning how to appreciate each part of a whole. Loss makes us complete beings - to know what it is like to lose something is to be human, thus forming empathy for all other living creatures.
There is the loveliness of the little things: little bits that pop in front of your eyes and make you happier to have seen it. Shards in your day like a reflection off a spoon sitting on the table or bubbles gracefully floating to the top of a wine glass. Little fragments of loveliness are everywhere and finding these moments of loveliness lights a candle inside our chests - one that keeps hope alive and gratitude swelling in full force. This is perhaps the most important form of loveliness on a day to day basis, because it is the easiest to forget about, but it is also the most infectious. Showing appreciation for the little things brings out a smile in others and a light in their eyes. Keep this form as infectious as possible, for this power may save a life, a day, an hour.
And so we roll back around to love and how it's infectious behavior effects each of our lives. We have a choice in life: to embrace the concept of loveliness, or to let go and become victims of our own dark corners. I choose to love and to be lovely and to focus on only that which is lovely. I choose to give love in every molecule of my being, because when the sun finally lays its head to rest. loveliness is the only thing that matters - the only thing that can change the world.
How do you incorporate loveliness into your life?
Stay beautiful,
XOXO Liz
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