Some Thoughts on Beauty and Malaise

Within a span of about 10 minutes this week, I wondered if I should quit my job, cut my hair, get on a dating app, or plan a trip. What will make me feel better? What will bring an appropriate level of excitement to my life? I was feeling struck this week in particular by a strong air of malaise. The problem is, I don't think any of these will actually cure what ails me. The fact of the matter is I have a job that is a constant frustration to me, and I live in a city where I know approximately one person (excluding my parents), and I have plans to leave here in 4-6 months, which makes it hard to find the motivation to really put down roots. It's the same story I've been living (and blogging about) for the last three months, and yet some weeks I still experience a fresh wave of this malaise. (Can you tell I just learned a new word?)

Anyway, here are some more thoughts I've been thinking lately. 

For one, I've been thinking a lot about beauty. Whenever I think of beauty these days, I think of a staff meeting about 2 years ago when we were prompted to list our top values. More than one person said beauty, and at the time, I couldn't understand. Beauty isn't a "value,"  I thought, and even if it is, it isn't really worth putting as one of your top values in life. But lately I might be changing my mind. I bought some really beautiful antique dishes today, and I am so thrilled to think about the joy and beauty they will inevitably help bring to my life. From all the silly little parties I attended and helped throw in Wheeling in the last year, I know that beautiful little things like dishes, stemware, candles, art, music, linens, and the like can help take an ordinary evening with friends and transform it into something special and memorable and joyous. I am not terribly fixated on my newly purchased little treasures themselves, but I feel so excited about the memories they will help me create. Even as I was picking them out in the antique mall, I started to get a rush of inspiration about my next dinner party (I'm thinking an end of summer celebration, maybe camping in the backyard, bluegrass on the speaker, taking inspiration from a mix of European and Appalachian summers....but with the real focus on being able to spend a night with my friends who I still don't see nearly enough). 

My new treasures include: a set of dishes (in 3 different sizes!), an espresso cup and saucer, a watercolor, a mug, a tiny pitcher from Italy, and a crystal (?) punch bowl and glasses

I've also been thinking about how beauty is not necessarily inherent or objective to a place or thing, even things that you might think it would be intrinsic to. For instance, the mountains I see every morning as I drive to work used to be the most beautiful scene in the world to me. In college, I couldn't get enough of those soft blue and green hills, and routinely found myself emotionally moved by them. They represented warmth and freedom and safety and both a vastness and nestledness that is hard to explain. I used to confuse this with them being objectively beautiful. I am still tempted to say that they are, yet I am not moved by them in the same way I once was. And they haven't changed and I don't think it's because I've grown used to them. Rather, I think it's connected to the fact that they now represent something so different. They are no longer home to my friends. They are no longer the barrier between myself and my parents, providing necessary space for me to become myself. Instead, I look at them and see how different they are from the hills and mountains of West Virginia. I look at them and think of my job and boss and the strange and oftentimes upsetting goings-on of small-town Craigsville. I see them as other people's home, but not mine, and it's been a long time since I've felt moved by them. 

I think also of the nature of food, and am always wondering why the food I'm helping grow this summer neither feels as special nor tastes as delicious as summers past. It's entirely possible that it really doesn't taste as good as other food I've grown. However, I would posit that even it if did, I would still be missing the vital connection to it that makes it feel beautiful to me. It doesn't feel like it's the literal fruits of my labor, even though is absolutely is. But even though I may plant it, cultivate it, harvest it, and even sell it, and if I'm lucky cook it, it just doesn't feel like mine. And it's much more akin to a forced labor than a labor of love. Because I know that so many, if not all, of our plants were not planted and tended to with love, but with massive frustration. And I know when they've been covered with insects or barely saved from rot or disease or riddled with pokey weeks or nearly fried by the sun. I know when they were the source of stress or strife. So even if a stranger might bite into a tomato and say it's delicious and sweet, it tastes different to me. 

I also know that adding little bits of beauty to my ordinary life, even (perhaps especially?) nights spent alone, makes a tremendous difference. It's why I refuse to eat off of plastic plates if I can help it. Taking the time to make things beautiful makes life feel less utilitarian (something I am prone to), and more...special. Lovely. Worth living. 

I don't claim these to be terribly original thoughts, but they are somewhat new to me. And I'm so thankful for my friends who prioritize finding and creating beauty in all things, and have taught me to do the same. 

In writing this, I am wondering if this--seeking and creating beauty-- could be a solution to my general malaise, and a more sustainable one than my other ideas.