Last December, after enduring the year everybody loves to hate, I dug up the 20 most beautiful lines I had read. It was a process of mining for beauty in a time that needed it, and it proved to be highly beneficial to me. Looking for the most beautiful passages I read sunk me back into some spectacular prose and provided me with several minutes of respite. Additionally, I challenged myself to write out why those specific lines resonated with me, which solidified the learning for each passage.
It is the golden hour. The sun is low in the sky and casts oblong shadows that dance as the wind rustles the fiery leaves still clutching to the trees. You are on a front porch, wrapped in a blanket, watching the sun make its dramatic descent. You revel in this moment, delighting in its calm and its beauty, wanting it to last forever. And you feel a stitch of sadness knowing that it will soon be gone and that you will someday look back at that time with longing.
Do you ever wish you could read a book again for the first time? When you read the last line, you move on to the acknowledgments, the paragraph about the author, and even turn to the back of the book to reread the synopsis, trying to find any new information to consume, unwilling to come to terms with the fact that the book is done?
It doesn’t happen to me often, but there are a handful of books I’d undergo hypnosis to be able to read anew. I’ve collected five of those stories into a list of books to get lost in this summer. I’m talking beautifully lost, like the hours that pass when you can’t put a book down. That kind of lost.
Springtime is the prototypical unveiling of transformation. You can’t step outside without each of your senses seeking out the changes that took hold during winter. Daffodils bloom so dramatically their stems bend with weight, apple trees explode with kaleidoscopic arrangements of pinks and purples, the sun bursts to set all of this growth in motion.
While flipping through a recent issue of The Atlantic, I landed on an article called How Civilization Broke our Brains: What can hunter-gatherer societies teach us about work, time, and happiness? It featured a drawing of a man in a hammock surrounded by lush greenery and blue skies. It’s idyllic at first glance. But a closer look reveals the man is lurching out of the hammock as he looks up at the phone-, envelope-, and other work-shaped clouds closing in on him.
My husband taught me something about flowers recently. Geranium, he told me, is a fault in wine. We were discussing the floral scent and had agreed that we both liked it. It’s lovely — it’s sweet and punchy and smells like a sun-drenched field pierced with bright crimson petals. But it signifies an unwanted reaction during the winemaking process. In other words, when you get a taste of geranium, you know something didn’t work the way it was supposed to.
Perfectionism is a geranium. Its optics are gorgeous, illuminated by a halo of grit, strength, and flawlessness. But perfectionism can be a fault. It cheats us from the art that so many people would have created, and indeed could have created, but didn’t because it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t so-called perfect. Perfectionism often prevents those who bear its weight from starting something new, from even trying.
As one is wont to do this time of year, I’ve been reflecting on everything I accomplished, what I didn’t achieve but hoped to, and how I can do better next year.
Yes, 2020 was an absolute shitstorm. But — and I realize the privilege that comes with this statement —it was a good year for me. I didn’t lose anybody I love (though I did lose my job), my and my family’s wellbeing have not been put on the line, and I’ve had the most productive year since graduate school.
It was the winter of 1991. My aquamarine bib snow pants were strapped onto my shoulders and bunched over my boots, my coat barely zipped up over my sweater. I was Ralphie’s brother from A Christmas Story. The snow was piled up higher than my head, and in the backyard, I kept getting stuck as I tried to cross the boreal terrain. My nose was cold and I was too warm under my layered winter gear, but it was a delight to partake in this, Minnesota’s famous Halloween Blizzard. Everybody has a story about it.
