Today Brooke Scott is guest posting. Brooke lives in the country near Toronto with her family and blogs regularly at violicious. I have known Brooke for almost 5 years. Our friendship began as we bonded over pneumonia was stories. She has been an integral part in finding my writing voice and a source of constant support and inspiration as we homeschool our 5 children alongside each other. With another mama, we created Sense of Story. Although we put to bed that project, it propelled us onto other creative paths.
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Mundane Beauty.
There is so much to grieve for on this earth.
The ugly is visible, exalted even.
Little care is put in to our public spaces and daily interactions while beauty fills in the spaces between errands.
I have pulled back from what ails me but when you have children, it isn’t enough.
You have to change it.
We all have our perceptions of what is beautiful and the modes of karmic transportation to that place and mine is lifting up the every day, the mundane.
What is beauty in my daily life?
Me with five children, chickens, muddy garden, musical instruments set up for constant use in the basement and books piles in every corner?
To start with, that. Minus the floors that need to be mopped.
I marvel at this beauty. This beauty some days hounds me from dawn to dusk but I wouldn’t trade it for any other.
It’s in the little things. Setting the table, sweeping the clutter from the counters, turning off the sounds that buzz around us constantly.
Maybe gracing the table with a handful of wildflowers in a small glass.
While I am no gifted seamstress, I make clothes and gifts for children’s birthday parties.
No calligrapher, I handwrite lists and daily to-dos for my children.
I’ve heard it all: It’s a waste of time and you can buy that, you know?
But I’m not so sure that’s true, in fact, I know it’s not.
There are days when I am the the three headed hyrdra of a mama.
I want what cannot be finished and am frustrated by what is.
But if we can put a little beauty in it?
Arrange his face into a smile, sing one off-key song in the car with the family?
Okay, I can live with that.
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Today, write all of your lists, the to-dos, grocery lists, dreams from the future in cursive with pen and ink.
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It’s something we forget to embrace everyday – beauty in the ordinary and seemingly mundane. This is it. The uncombed hair and spilt milk.
Thanks for this, Brooke.
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