In Beauty It Is Finished

I loved reading people’s comments on my Yorkshire Dale photos—“Beautiful!” “Gorgeous!” “Lovely.”  Testimonies as to how hungry we are for beauty in our lives. 

 

It is not incidental. It is central. 

 

When we settle for utility bereft of beauty, forced-air malls over open-air markets, hotel breakfasts of stale muffins and bad coffee in Styrofoam cups with views of the parking lot, we are diminished. 

 

First in the English countryside, now in the Tyrolean Alps, splendor is all around. The magnificence of the natural world, the care taken in architecture, the food carefully cooked and attractively presented— it makes a difference. Seeps into the soul and reminds us that we are made for beauty. If we can remember that, then it makes sense to preserve it, to cultivate it, to create it, to savor it— in the way we live, the way we love, the things we make, the things we cherish. 

 

The arts, of course, are part of the landscape, but more important is the sense of artistry in everything we do, everything we are. I’ve heard that the Balinese have no word for “art” and simply suggest that everything they do (a lot!) that we call “art” is simply doing things well, with care and attention. So here I am, with six others, about to begin our 10-day bike trip in the spirit of one verse in the Navaho Night Chant:

 

“May it be beautiful before me. 

May it be beautiful behind me. 

May it be beautiful below me. 

May it be beautiful above me.

 May it be beautiful all around me. 

In beauty it is finished. 

In beauty it is finished.”

 

 

Love, Admiration, Fear & Hatred

“We all want to be loved. Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs, we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact”

 

               My grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry— Fredrik Backman

 

This explains so much. Those who choose hate, who try to stir up fear, are admitting the vacuum in their own souls, their failure to merit admiration, to attract love. Every human deserves some measure of unconditional love, but also needs to step up to the mark of their own highest promise to be wholly worthy of love. So much of the willingness to be brainwashed into hatred and fear that we’re seeing in the world today is our incapacity to love ourselves and others, our inability to admire things worthy of admiration. If our family or school or culture refused to see our best possibilities, then we are vulnerable to being seen through our worst. What is intolerable is to be invisible, to be left alone without contact. So it behooves us all to choose wisely. Do we want to live lives that inspire the love of and from others, that merit admiration, or are we content to be feared, hated and despised?

 

As I wrote in my recent book, if no one invites us to join the band and do the work to express ourselves through the discipline of learning an instrument, the habit of playing in harmony with others, the work of immersing ourselves in beauty, then we might join the gang. Not just the violent street gangs of teens, but the gang of the fundamentalist churches or mean-spirited political parties or conspiracy theory trolls. If we can’t stir up feelings of love or admiration from others, then we’ll troll their Facebook posts or Substack writings and shoot out our hateful venom at those who are actually doing the work to think, feel and care. 

 

And so education. Not only to develop our capacity to think, to feel, to care in a conscious and intentional way, but to create learning communities dedicated to making sure that each child be welcomed, valued, seen, celebrated and encouraged to fulfill their highest humanitarian promise. It is  perhaps the most needed and radical act that reduces the toxic practices of contemporary life, refuses the invitation to fear, hate and despise. 

 

As schools all over the country finish up their year, a grand salute to all the teachers and institutions that take that work to heart. 

Parting Glances

Back to the story line. After the Fashion Museum on Friday, with a lovely exhibit featuring two sisters, Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell, we walked on to the Tate Museum and strolled through an exhibit of J.M.W. Turner paintings. I’m about as familiar with his work as the average educated person, but was surprised by his tip toward abstraction painting storms, snow and sea—all before 1851! He deeply influenced later artists like Mark Rothko who quipped, “Turner learned a lot from me!” Rothko was born 50 years after Turner died! 

 

Ate dinner at Paddington Station (our favorite Underground Stop), a little indoor Food Court with the dreaded pounding disco, but good food options (fish tacos/ Indonesian Mee Goreng) that we could thankfully take outside away from the hammering beat. Home to our place far away at Hayes and Harlington, a neighborhood with a wide range of ethnicities and feeling somewhat home to be amongst them. 

 

The next day, the insistent rain continued, so I bought a little umbrella and the first chance I tried to use it, it turned inside out and just about broke. A $9.00 purchase for 9 seconds of use. Hmm. Met my Turkish friends Betul and Mert (cross-reference with my time in London last June if you’re so inclined), for a sumptuous late-afternoon lunch at the remarkable Dishoon Indian restaurant. We had hoped to take in a show later, but missed the cheaper prices, so the new plan was to look for a yarn store for Karen, a bookstore for me and maybe find a Jazz Club. 

 

During our 8-mile walk around many neighborhoods yesterday, we had kept our eyes open for books and yarn, to no avail. Then Karen looked online and found one a 20-minute walk from the restaurant, but it was marked as closed. So imagine our surprise when we walked out of the restaurant, turned right and the store next door sold yarn! And had just what Karen needed.

 

Thinking the gods were with us, we strolled down to the canal to a charming bookstore on a boat in the water with a pixie-‘ish man at the cash register. I was determined to find a book by Wilkie Collins (contemporary of Dickens) titled No Name. Seems if I could find it anywhere, it would be in London! But not so. They had one copy of his book The Moonstone that I had read too recently. Browsed a bit on the boat, first time I ever shopped for books getting a little seasick. No inspiration, off we went walking along the canal to searach for another bookstore. 

 

These canals in London are really the best kept secret of the city. Nobody seems to talk about them, but they’re absolutely charming. The first one we “discovered” last year was near Paddington Station and this was much closer to King’s Cross. They just seem to go on and on and are thoroughly delightful for a city stroll. 

 

At King’s Cross, decided to take a bus to Islington, where there was a larger Waterstone’s Bookstore. Surely they would have the Collins book! And they did have one—The Woman in White, which I had also read too recently. But I did find an Anthony Horowitz version of Sherlock Holmes titled House of Silk, so though we were leaving the UK the next day, it was close enough to matching the book I’m reading with the place I’m exploring.

 

Now we just needed a little café and after striking out twice in bars with that disco beat form hell, found a simple café with coffee and tea and no music throbbing—and the owners were Turkish! In the course of conversation, Betul and I sang (well, I hummed the melody) a few Turkish songs and the waiter came over and joined in! Great fun!

 

By now, it was 9:30 at night, so we gave up on the Jazz Club and parted ways to begin the long Underground Trek back to our hotel. The Northern Line to Hammersmith and City to Elizabeth line, then one more bus, which we boarded. But turned out to be the wrong bus, taking us 20 minutes out of the way in the wrong direction! With the help of two bus drivers, we finally re-navigated back to the right place, getting back by midnight.

 

And now, here we are at Luton Airport. I was steeled for bureaucratic horror joined with outrageous addition charges from Ryan Airlines (trying to check in with them the other night was one of the things that brought me close to calling Suicide Prevention). Imagine my surprise and delight when we walked right up to the counter, checked our bags without fuss or extra charges, were handed our paper tickets and we were done. Went through Security without a hitch, no passport control at this end (not sure why) and now awaiting the gate number for our flight to Venice. A whole new adventure awaits. 

 

PS Below one of the Campbell Collier pieces in the exhibit, a Turner painting and the bookstore on the canal. 

 

What's In a Name?

Rub-a-dub-dub, Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,

And all of them out to sea.

 

Pop-quiz! What do James Booker, Karen Carpenter, John Constable, Noel Coward, James Dean, William Faulkner, Carrie Fisher, George Foreman, Danny Glover, Stephen Hawking, Susan Hayward, Gustav Mahler, Harry Potter, Adam Sandler, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, James Taylor and  J.M.W. Turner all have in common?

 

Take a moment before reading on and see if you can guess. 

 

Got it? 

 

Buzzzz! Time’s up. They all have surnames that come from professions. Most of English origin, a few above from German. For some reason, I started obsessing about this and examples running through my mind woke me up far too early. I made a pretty good list on my own and then supplemented it with some simple online research. Here it is. See if your name or a friend’s or a famous person you might know is on here:

 

Baker, Barber, Butcher, Booker, Brewer, Butler, Carpenter, Constable, Cook, Cooper, Dean, Duke, Dyer, Fisher, Foreman, Gardner, Goldsmith, Harper, Hunter, Hooper, Merchant, Miller, Miner, Painter, Piper, Planter, Porter, Potter, Schubert/Schumann/Shoemaker, Shepard, Smith, Spicer, Tanner, Taylor, Warden, Waterman, Weaver, Wheeler. 

 

Most of the above are fairly self-explanatory, but there’s a whole other list that needs a little explanation. 

 

Chandler, (candle-maker), Carter (wagon driver), Cartwright (wagon-maker), Coward (from cow-herd, one who herds cows), Faulkner (falconer), Fletcher (feathers on arrows), Forester/Forster/ Foster (scissors-makers), Glazer (glass-worker), Glover (glove-maker), Grover (tends to trees), Hawking (falconer), Hayward (fence-keeper), Mahler (maker of stained glass windows), Sandler (sandal-maker), Turner (lathe-worker), Walker (Waulker—one who finishes newly woven tweed). 

 

Like the days of the week or the months of the year, we seldom inquire where words and names come from, but I, for one, find it fascinating. 

 

And now I—and you — can get on with the day. 

 

The Sum of It

 

1973. Long before QR codes, text codes, passport chips, passwords, HEIC/JPG/ PDF’s, online ticketing without a human in sight—in short, all the things that didn’t work for me last night and had me bellowing in rage. Topped off by a Premier Inn reading light that didn’t work, no new bulb at the front desk, my suggestion to use an extension cord to move the desk lamp by my bedside and then discovering the lamp was bolted to the desk. So many last straws that broke the back of my patience that I was imagining writing a suicide note:

 

“Sorry. I just couldn’t bear one more password that didn’t work. Farewell, cruel world!”

 

And then thinking I should re-charge my phone before killing myself in case St. Peter required a QR Code before entering the pearly gates. 

 

But back in 1973, I had no inkling of the insanity to come. I was 22 years old and awash with wonder as I went to Europe for the first time with my college choir. In between singing sacred 15^th century masses in the great cathedrals of France and Italy, going to art museums, attending wine tastings (yes, really!), I spent my free time wandering the streets and alleys of cities, often ending up in a park or garden. There I would sit on a bench, open my journal and try to catch a bit of the multiple joys as they were flying. Mortality was a distant city at which I imagined I would never arrive and the whole world lay before me—tangible, tantalizing and tasty. Sheer bliss.

 

Now it’s 2026. So much of that world that lay ahead unwritten now lies behind. My contemporary life, like just about everyone’s, is wholly ensnared in the tangled trip-wires of technology. I appear to need my phone for my hearing aids, maps, menus, messages, aps, Uber, banking, wake-up calls, e-mails, photos, etc. etc. and again etc. When things don’t work, I’m mostly out of luck. When they do, I benefit. But do I really? It’s just too much constantly clamoring for attention and drawing me away from the wonder of wandering free.

 

And yet. I still can taste that earlier sense of adventure in three- dimensions, savor the textures, tastes, sounds, smells and sights. I still can set off on my own two legs and go where I choose to direct them or be led by them- and apparently, for as far as 9.5 miles, as I did the other day. I still head for benches in parks to write with a pen in my journal. * 

 

And that’s where I am now, in a little garden near the Fashion Museum in London, with its fragrant and colorful roses, the pleasure of a little sunshine, the distant sounds of children playing. It’s still possible to live like this. Not easy. But possible.

 

As for mortality, that shadowy companion that reminds me to savor each moment yet more fully, my response is a simple vow that arose when a friend commented on a Facebook post sharing photos from our walk in the Yorkshire Dales. She said: 

 

“Living your best life!”

 

And I replied: 

 

“Doing what I can with whom I can when I can while I can.”

 

Which read to me like a pretty good Elder’s Mission Statement. 

 

So again: “Doing what I can with whom I can when I can while I can.”

 

That’s the sum of it.

* I actually did write the above in my handwritten journal and liked it enough to type it over here.

  

This Is What It Looks Like

 

“Be the change you want to see in the world,” Gandhi famously said, and this could be an oath for all teachers. But not every teacher has a clear vision of what that might look and feel like. So here’s a little help from a remarkable 5^th grade teacher, as she posted in Facebook to mark the end of the school year:

 

As another school year comes to a close, I’m dizzy with emotion, as usual. Today, was our elementary graduation ceremony. I had stayed up late the night before putting all 750 pictures from my phone into a slideshow, which cued up to cheesy music that played on repeat for 15 minutes. 

 

I did the math and between cross country, monthly walk to schools, and the end of the year camping trip, these fifth graders and I have walked 100 miles together. In the rain (we found lots of snails on that walk), in the heat (they found creative ways to discuss the weather without breaking the “one whine a day” rule), up 212 steps to the top of windy hills (with a mandatory meditation at the top), and running down single-track paths. 

We had our annual camping trip to finish the year and it was all the magic I hoped it to be- kids inventing games, skipping rocks, telling scary stories, washing their hands at the spigot, and on our last night, going on a night hike.

The kids walked alone, one at a time as the brightness dimmed and we formed a circle on top of a small hill - the vastness of the water below. They were all a little silly and I pulled us in close, inviting words of appreciation for the class. 

Ella says that this is a class where everyone belongs. And that’s special. Ben says that everyone is there for you. You never have to be alone. I said this is the only class I’ve had and likely will ever have that can whip up an improvised skit about the travels of an egg, complete with fallopian tube butlers and the pituitary gland actor standing on a chair conducting the whole thing. And everyone has a part. And everyone is laughing.

 

I told them to see how far they could walk back without turning on their flashlight. I called it a night hike challenge. They immediately, Pavlovian-like respond, “dun, dun dun” They are crazed, the emotion spilling out into silliness.

Yuzu was spinning in circles on the trail, giggling uncontrollably. She said, in between breaths, “I’m laughing and I’m crying all at the same time.” Emile said in his signature wry voice- “Yeah, I think that’s the point.” 

 

Indeed, that’s the point. If you give children what they need and deserve, they get it. And hopefully grow to be adults who never forget it. And pass it on.

 

The kind of change in the world this extraordinary 5^th grade teacher created does not come for free. It requires constant dreaming of what might be, married to the hard, hard work of setting it in motion. Detail after detail planning classes, the jazz discipline of responding to whatever the kids throw your way, long hours reading papers and asking the questions that get the kids to come up with the answers for more clarity and better answers. It demands a faith and a patience beyond the ordinary, a reaching far beyond any job description, a determination to fill the serious work with fun and good humor. It asks for a capacity to see the beauty in each and every child amidst all their quirks and failings and drive-you-crazy habits, and in so doing, to genuinely love them and let them know they are seen and valued and loved. All of which this 5^th grade teacher accomplished. I could not by more impressed or inspired by her and her work.

 

And she is my daughter. 

Hiking Clothes

When I first visited Salzburg in 1990, I was so impressed to see elder women (though probably younger than I am now!) riding bicycles here, there and everywhere, dressed in skirts or drindls. Just out to the market for the groceries they put in the front basket and off to visit a friend. No one was counting miles or dressed in bike gear or even wearing a helmet. No one was part of a club of bike enthusiasts subscribed to the Biker’s Magazine, no one was comparing bikes and prices or debating about cleated shoes/ pedals. No one joined a Bike Coalition to pressure city hall for more bike-friendly roads. The bike paths were already in place and people used them as a matter of simple daily life. Biking was not a “thing”—it was simply a way to get from here to there and back again.

 

But in my country, everything has to be a “thing.” Special gear, special schedules, special vocabulary, clubs, magazines, the whole deal. Be it birdwatching or folk dancing or pickleball, biking or roller-blading or kayaking, downloading aps and upgrading phones, everything has a little industry built around it. Gone is the simple pleasure of just doing it, the simple conversations about the pleasure of doing it, the simple act of doing it all without elaborate and expensive gear. 

 

So although I enjoy biking, I’m not a “biker.” I never purchased a single item of biker’s clothing, from the corporate logo’ed shirts and shorts to the gloves and certainly not the cleats. Yes, I wear a helmet, but occasionally (sshh! don’t tell) ride without one (especially in Salzburg) and have lived to tell the tale. 

 

So on this walk (and on the bike trip soon to come), I’m wearing my normal clothes— my city shoes, jeans, shirt and blue raincoat and it has been just fine. I probably could have brought my seldom-used pair of rain-pants—they’re light and would have been useful these last three days of walking in the rain. Today, my jeans got quite wet and added weight and coldness to yet another walk through the lovely countryside. We stopped for lunch at Elaine’s Tea House in Feizer and sitting there in my cold, wet jeans, got the funny idea of taking them off in the bathroom and holding them under the hot-air hand dryer. Which I did! As my wife predicted, it didn’t make much of an impact, so just walked the final two miles to the town of Austwick with them cold and wet and that was just fine. Settle in our room, stuff newspaper in our shoes to dry them, hang the jeans on the bathroom heated towel rack and all is well.

 

So ends officially our four days of walking and a bit sad to see it end. I think I could keep up like this for a few weeks or a month. My legs are certainly getting stronger (we walked 9.5 miles yesterday), my connection with sheep and cows deepened, my acceptance of different weathers enlarged and my spirit fed by life in the open air. As the title of a movie I saw once on a plane says: 

 

Happy. Thank you. More please.