Finding indelible beauty in the bad
In April of 2020, a friend gave me the idea of writing down three things that happen every day. I liked that. The pandemic days melt into each other and I was afraid I may forget important things as we wait for a vaccine. I also liked the idea because I couldn’t quite muster up the courage to write down three things I’m grateful for—a rather common method to build a positive mindset. To me, it sounds like a noble task that requires too much positivity. I’m not sure I’m ready to admit good in the bad.
The upheaval in our family because of an accident in November has soured my faith. It hasn’t destroyed it, but right now it just tastes bitter to me. It does sneak out and snag my heart when I listen to powerful lyrics set to a lovely tune. I dip my toe in it and then I tuck my faith away—deep inside and wait for it to embrace me.
Back to the list of three things, it’s stunning how many things have gone down since I began this habit. Perhaps that’s why I’m holding off on banking on faith to get me through? Although I attempted to list the “good” I could find in each day, it surprised me how much “bad” I documented—some bad things were small and some were quite big, all of them fell far from the comfort zone.
Evidently, pain and grief have no limits. Just because one monumental bad thing happened back in November does not make our family exempt from other bad things happening. And from what I can tell as these pandemic months continue, I know many others have felt and experienced the same. The fact is, bad things can stack up and have no decency to sparsely spread themselves evenly throughout life.
But then, who said life would be easy?
Who gets a free pass to the comfort zone?
And although we may strive to live a balanced life, why does the scale frequently tip one way or the other?
Reality fluctuates between good, bad and everything in between. Perhaps the bad lingers or won’t get better, but it sure can make the good sparkle when it pokes it head. It seems that a definition of bad in life is often based on our proximity to it or our current frame of mind.
Maybe life means trudging through the bad and grabbing on to faith when it’s within reach instead of waiting for its embrace?
Perhaps living in “bad” is “normal zone” and is occasionally balanced by some “good” to keep us from toppling over the edge?
As a way to move out from under the weight of the BAD column, I’m choosing to focus on the GOOD column. It’s my list curated from time with the ocean.
After long days of online teaching in June in Colorado, I couldn’t wait to escape to paradise—also known as Jupiter, Florida—to see my husband Chuck and son Carter who is recovering from injuries sustained when a boat struck him on Thanksgiving Day.
Chuck and I say it over and over: as bad as things are, we couldn’t be “stuck” in a better place. Although we both adore the mountains of Colorado, the ocean and its constant whisper of waves carry a magnetic pull. Thanks to our seaside condo, one hundred steps takes us directly to a view that stuns and soothes us with its sound and beauty.
Most days, gentle waves draw a white line of foam on the beige colored sand sprinkled with shells. The brilliance of the blue sky and the white cotton candy clouds complement the water’s indelible combination of teal and blue.
Curious what the ocean was like in the morning, one day we took our coffee and walked down to the beach and found that angry waves carved steep scarps (banks) in the sand. We were horrified to find numerous sea turtle nests exposed to the elements as the water eroded the sand that had once created a snug incubator for the eggs.
Another day, we awoke to a massive blob of seagrass that stretched for miles along the coast and out to the horizon. Every wave pushed more clumps of the weed onto the beach. The coast was lined with heaping mounds of dried brown seagrass that when baked by the sun, became crunchy and attracted flies and other critters
Some days, wind surfers would take to the sea and we watched them maneuver the waves and catch the wind in their colorful sails.
On our evening walks, the horizon showcased clouds exploding into enormous plumes that dazzled us with light shows while the moonbeams sparkled in the water. On two particular evenings, we stumbled across sea turtle hatchlings instinctively sneaking their way to their new ocean home.
If the afternoons were sunny, Chuck felt it was important to take advantage of them. There were plenty of torrential storms that kept us from being outside. So after he finished work around 4pm we suited up, rubbed on some sunscreen and walked our beach chairs and some cold IPAs to the ocean’s edge.
Since “our beach” welcomes dogs, we usually found ourselves chuckling about a dog hopping over the waves and fetching a tennis ball thrown far into the ocean. Of course, people and bird watching kept us plenty busy.
After the first IPA, we braved the waves broken at the shore and floated on our backs letting the current of warm salt water lift our toes above the surface as if we were weightless. The water and waves proved therapeutic for both of us. They gave us a dose of good even though the same ocean brought us so much bad back in November.
My arrangement of "For the Beauty of the Earth” featured in the video below is my homage to the ocean. Just like life, the ocean is uncontrollable and comes with good and bad. Its gentle current soothes and its crashing waves destroy and yet it remains faithful to its indelible beauty.
Lately, it seems that my contemplative posts coincide with original work at the keys. I think I call these “beyond words posts.” I hope you’ll watch the video so that you can enjoy the sound and the photos that my words above fail to capture.
