What is beautiful?

I am very sad these days, and casting about frantically for things to make me smile.

Today I’m thinking about what I find beautiful. Just as what disgusts us elucidates a bit of who we are, I think that to which we are viscerally drawn is very telling. One question I find really challenging is naming people I admire (I admire everyone for something, and few for everything). Conversely, I find it incredibly easy to describe what I find beautiful.

I am instinctively attracted to charisma. I love people who have that ineffable quality of making you simply want to be with them. I’ve likened it before to when, as a child, we used to all stand clustered on one corner of the raft in the ocean to make it tip over as steeply as we could. Certain people make a room tip like that, and all of the energy runs down into their corner. I love those people, especially those who are oblivious to the way they command others. Confidence is necessary but not sufficient for the quality I describe. I don’t personally have this quality, and I profoundly drawn to those who do.

Simplicity is beautiful. I find uncluttered spaces, empty flat surfaces, white walls, white sheets, shining wooden floors very beautiful. There is something in spaces like that that sings to me of clarity, of an unfettered mind and the confidence that the bare bones are enough. Likewise, I often find simplicity of dress very beautiful. Carolyn Bessette Kennedy style. I admire the layering, magpie aesthetic that J Crew has working right now, but it always feels fussy and complicated when I try it.

Sureness of purpose is beautiful. I know people who are truly pursuing their dharma, their passion, their purpose, and they seem be galloping smoothly. In contrast I feel I am trotting awkwardly, running a three-legged race with one leg tied to an uncoordinated partner. I am so drawn to those who know what their are supposed to be doing and who are doing it with their whole heart. I am riveted hearing people talk about their passions, whatever they are, and when someone speaks from that place I am interested, no matter what the topic.

Moments can be beautiful. Some, planned and actively created, like this summer’s dinner with my dear friends around a table to celebrate my birthday. Others, as unexpected and evanescent as catching a hummingbird buzzing by. Some people I know, like Hadley, are expert at crafting such beauty. When I am with her the days are stuffed full of experiences that I recall, infinitessimally small but gorgeous and memorable, as though she somehow made sure the shaft of light was falling at the right angle through the champagne cocktail and the music was perfect. This is a talent and I am grateful for being exposed to it.

I am deeply attracted to feeling safe. The feeling of serenity and security is, for some reason I don’t quite understand, not natural for me, and people and places who provide it are thus profoundly appealing. The vague feeling of having the dark and confusing cosmos rendered understandable to me is fleeting, provided by few, and desperately attractive. I don’t know exactly when or where I started fearing that the very earth I stand on is unstable, but I do, and I cherish those who can protect me from the earthquakes.

What else do I find beautiful? So much. I don’t yet see the sweeping themes here, but I am sure they exist. If you see some, please let me know.

Smiles with wrinkles crinkling the sides of the eyes, sleeping children, the smell of laundry, the sound of halyards snapping against masts, dark blue pedicures, midtown New York at night at Christmas, heartfelt thanks.

The way certain people I love look at me when they feel love, faded jeans, the first flutter when I felt my babies inside of me, certain songs whose lyrics make me cry, Mark Rothko, rowers slicing through the Charles at dawn as the fog lifts off the river.

A cold glass of wine at the beginning of a night I’m looking forward to, a baby’s goosedown hair, handwriting, my leather bracelet I never take off, the graceful lines of Apple products (some made of a single piece of aluminium), fountain pens, the black and white photograph of my mother sailing a dinghy when she was a child.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, the words of Mary Oliver and Sharon Olds, the kindness showed to me by Mr. Valhouli all the way back at boarding school, Manolo Blahnik strappy stilettos, projects made by hand and with care just for me, the feeling of crossing the finish line of a half marathon.

Christmas carols, the Solstices (both winter and summer), my daughter’s well-worn teddy bears, my son’s crazy blue eyes (and the mystery of the genetic lottery that gave them to him, with 2 parents and 4 grandparents with brown eyes), the view from the yoga room at Feathered Pipe Ranch, lighthouses.