Finding beauty in everyday life
March letter, 2025
Dear girls,
Today, a pink hole punch arrived in the post.
This ignited a lot of curiosity in our house. "Wow, it's pink! I like pink". You turned it over and over in your pudgy hands. "What is it?"
Your daddy side-eyed me as if this might be the first budding of a mid-life crisis. But I've been thinking about beauty a lot lately. Now, I accept that a pink hole punch is not exactly beautiful. It's perhaps kitsch or fun at best. But let me explain.
At home, we've tried to be more thoughtful in our consumption habits in recent years by prioritising function over form. If something can last, then it must make do. In this way, beauty became a luxury, at worst, a frivolity. I ended up feeling greedy and ashamed for wanting something for its beauty alone. What a waste of resources.
Recently, I reminded myself that the consumption of beauty is not the same as the consumption of stuff. Sometimes, it goes hand-in-hand, but look at nature - what abundant beauty it displays for us all year long without a penny being spent. Beauty runs through everything life touches. Nature does not only create for function; it expresses itself through form.
'“All beings yearn toward the exuberant expression of their life force. Birds sing much more than necessary; kittens play more than they have to; raspberries taste better than they need to. And you too, my friend, yearn to express your gifts in a beautiful way, more beautiful than necessary to secure a living.”
- Charles Eisenstein, A Climate Story
These beautiful "excesses" of nature are part of life's natural abundance. It is its outpouring of itself into the world, a creative and generous gift for the benefit of all. We rest in this beauty and are restored. Whether by forest, ocean, or mountain, the peace we feel amongst nature's marvels is because they are beautiful, magnificent, awe-inspiring, mind-relieving. When we experience awe, we feel at one with the world. Surely, this is the highest feeling there is.
Beauty touches something deep and primal within us. A beautiful piece of music can stir up untold depths within us that we had somehow forgotten were there. Even you, Edie, at only three years old, will turn to me and say, "Mummy, this sounds like a sad song" when you hear a sweet, nostalgic melody. What does the music make you remember, I wonder?
Lately, I have realised that I have neglected beauty in many ways. The grind had taken over our lives, and beauty had been pushed aside with it. Beauty is never gone, of course. It is there in everything, waiting to be noticed, but it will only reveal itself to the eye that appreciates. To notice beauty is an act of presence, a kind of prayer, and a moment of rest.
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
— Mary Oliver, ‘Praying’
The relentless baby and toddler years are fading from our lives. Sometimes, the sadness of this leaves me breathless. But, with its passing, I see the opportunity to lift our heads again and welcome more beauty back into our lives. Here are some of the ways:
To notice beauty more, wherever it may appear. A little flower is bursting through the pointing of our house. Your tiny fingernails, so small and delicate. The purple sunrise. Our kitchen table marked and stained with the remnants of your paintings, becoming an artwork in itself.
To choose beauty whenever I can. When something needs to be replaced, I'll look for function and form, recognising that when I see beauty in something, I want to look after it more.
To sometimes choose poetry over news. Novels over binge TV. Music over self-improvement podcasts.
To make beauty with my own hands. To create beauty with the words I write. To capture a special moment with a photograph. To prepare a colourful meal. To put together beautiful clothes.
To be beauty. To embody the natural gentleness of beauty. Beauty is not loud, aggressive, or flashy. It is a quiet, reverent state. Beauty reveals its essence to the patient observer. It does not dominate. It has nothing at all to do with physical beauty. It's about attuning to that within us that is already beautiful, our essence, and being in harmony with it.
You girls already do all of this so naturally. From 18 months old, you insisted on putting together your own outfits, knowing your taste before even knowing how to talk. You create raw, unfiltered art everywhere. You draw on the windows, the bathroom tiles, on bills. You create beds for teddies that are works of art in themselves, far exceeding Tracy Emin in my eyes. You live your essence, fully and brightly, for all people to see.
I wish you could hold onto this.
It's why I want you to see us choosing beauty as adults. To choose beauty is to choose ourselves. It points to what our hearts like and to who we are. To be in touch with the quiet beauty within our own souls is to see it reflected everywhere because beauty opens up to beauty. There is nothing frivolous about this. Even in the most desperate times, a moment of beauty can provide rest and nourishment. Beauty is hope.
There is also a relationship between beauty and small rituals. To slow down and pay reverence to something is to honour it with your attention and see it with new eyes. I find beauty in doing ordinary things with new intentionality. I like to choose a match from a beautifully illustrated box and light a scented candle before I write. I always stop for a beat to take in the scent of the struck match - one of my favourite smells.
Beauty has its own signature in each of our lives. We can fill our days with these small touches of beauty and get a different kind of dopamine hit than the ones we're used to in mainstream culture. These "hits" make me feel more rounded and joyful as a person rather than flattened out.
So, when I needed a new hole punch, I ordered the pink one. Ok, it's not typically beautiful, but it's certainly not mundane. It's made to last ✅
Most importantly, I feel a tiny dose of joy when I see it.
And so do you girls 🩷
Love Mama x