Beauty is Contagious

Last week a fellow parent at my kids’ school proposed that we get together for an art date. Totally charmed by this idea, I accepted and we began comparing schedules.  Not but a few days later, the world had been turned upside down. Was there anything we could work on remotely, she wondered? Just before she posed her question I had been touched by another friend’s Instagram post of blooming flowers he had photographed on his morning walk.  “Beauty amidst peril” I had commented. It felt like a breath of fresh air to share in another’s appreciation of the beauty around us that often goes unnoticed. Maybe this was something we could do -- encourage others to notice and share the beauty in their everyday lives as an act of positive social disruption.  

In times like this I find it easy to succumb to mass anxiety and fear.  I have more than once found myself panic buying on the internet, and gone down the daydream rabbit hole of armageddon scenarios in my mind.  Visions of us collecting sticks for firewood, or attempting to figure out how to make rainwater safe to drink take over my consciousness, and before I know it I am in the pantry taking inventory of our dried bean supply.  Logging onto social media accounts doesn’t help this affliction much. Some people are posting positivity, but we are also using it as an outlet for empathy seeking and finger pointing. There are so many ways for us to use social media, and I think we can all agree that our consumption of it can elicit a multitude of emotions.  The reality of our current situation is that we have fewer ways to communicate with one another than we have in the past, and I see us yearning for connection to one another in our physical isolation.  

The manner in which we are connected now has some unprecedented characteristics. We live in a time of fake news, unparalleled greed, and deep distrust of our fellow man.  The internet could be likened to the Wild West, and it is our main source of information. At the same time that we have this distrust of one another, we are relying on each other to keep the most vulnerable among us safe.  There is a strange paradox here that we have yet to wrap our collective brains around: Each individual has to care about humanity as a whole in order to protect themselves and their loved ones. While our current circumstances are frightening and uncertain, it also offers the perfect opportunity for us to recognize that our connectedness has put us in the same proverbial boat.

I also think we are connected, as we always are, in our need for beauty in our lives, and it is arguably even more important in times of trauma and tragedy. As a musician and artist I think about beauty all the time, whether I am aware of naming it as such or not. I can agonize over the perfect architecture of a musical phrase, or fret over a color choice in a drawing.  I see it now as a bit of a luxury to become so preoccupied with the pursuit of perfecting beauty. Thinking of it in this narrow capacity obscures its superpower; Beauty has the power to soothe, even to heal. We should stop thinking of beauty as a commodity and start recognizing it as an extraordinary gift -- one we can both share in and offer freely.  

So, what better time to create your own art than right now?  Many of us are finding ourselves with more time on our hands than we have ever had available.  If you make your living as an artist, try to use this time and space to remember what made you fall in love in the first place.  If you have only ever dabbled in the arts, their power to heal and give is no less effective on you. Pull that guitar out of the back of your closet, dust off your paints, open a blank document on your computer.  Do the thing your heart has been begging you to find time to do for years.

When I was spending time with my son yesterday he got out these robot blocks to build with.  They are cleverly designed to create a myriad of stacking combinations. We finished with this one as the most impressive of balancing and organizational feats we could come up with. Looking at it again this morning it occurred to me that it represents a picture of what we are facing right now; the fate of multiple potential infections can rest on the shoulders of a single individual.  It can also represent our beauty analogy -- after all, as my observant daughter pointed out “hey mom, the robots form the shape of a heart!” One small act of beauty can start a chain reaction. So my friend and I are starting @smallactsofbeauty on Instagram.  Please consider following, and then sharing your everyday acts and observations of beauty with us. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!