One of the surprises of aging for me is finding myself smitten by beauty. Sunrises and sunsets, trees, butterflies, mushrooms. I know it’s been there all along but the thing is I now have time to savor it, to sit and stare.
It isn’t just the beauty of natural things that whack me upside the head. There is music. I’m taking a Coursera class from Yale University on Classical music and I’m spending hours with Gregorian chant, with Bach and Mozart and just now Beethoven. To hear it and feel it and ride the emotional waves of it is to be immersed in audible beauty.
We’ve been able to take trips to museums to see beautiful works of art and again to have the time to really look and think and admire.
And then there is the beauty of words. It has been a couple of years now that Mary Oliver has been part of my world. I’d never had much use for poetry until I found her work and it was like a wonderful oil poured into crevices of my mind. So I decided to give poetry a chance and I’m still wandering around making beautiful discoveries of poetry. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for it before now.
Speaking of the beauty of words, I’ve dug out the old King James Bible to read Psalms. And I’ve ordered an Anglican Book of Common Prayer for the beauty of the service.
Anyway, I suppose if one is to be surprised, it is wonderful to be smitten by beauty.
2 comments:
The time to savour is a huge bonus, I've always loved beauty and adore Beethoven particularly (attended all symphonies every week in Toronto one Spring, oh my) but the time to indulge is magnificent.
XO
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Just plain 'having time' is a gift I treasure that each day. Those two words cover so much -- so many things we couldn't do in our workday world. The joys of nature (I love how you put that 'being smitten by beauty') ... the joy of reading that need not be 'sneaked' into odd moments ... the time to just sit still. We are so fortunate. I also feel fortunate that I had a career of sorts ... because I know more than a few women in our age range who did not 'work out of the home' (as we used to put it) -- and I don't think those women appreciate these joys as much as do those of us who were busier in our younger years.
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