Viewing Beauty Deep

Viewing Beauty Deep

“The more often we see the things around us – even the beautiful and wonderful things – the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds – even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.” ~Joseph B. Wirthlin

The night before my husband’s day of scans, I went outside and clipped some fragrant, tissue-paper-pink blossoms. With the solemnity of a religious ritual, I took my time arranging the peonies in a vase, and then stood back in my moonlit Wisconsin kitchen and admired the bouquet.

Viewing such beauty put my mind and heart at ease. The next morning, however, I barely noticed these blossoms, as my husband and I scrambled to get out the door by five. Two hours later, we parked and dashed through the rain into Mayo Clinic. It was our second time at the facility, but I never got over its thoughtful display of grandeur and art:

Glittering sidewalks, marble halls, Babel-high ceilings; an ancient, elaborately painted, armoire from Sweden; a mammoth blown-glass egg, the color of spring grass, from Bohemia; a collection of jewelry from Morocco; clay tablets, from Papa New Guinea, once used in ritualistic dancing.

I stared at a collection of jewel-toned paintings, featuring exotic birds and flora, as I waited for my husband to return from his MRI, and then I lowered my gaze back to my laptop screen and continued typing, finding as much security in the composition of sentences as a painter finds in his brush.

Forty-five minutes later, my husband returned, and we decided to take advantage of the gap between appointments to go across the street for lunch. We heard the piano and the singing as soon as the elevator doors ushered us into the lobby.

The performers were women—beautiful women, representing a variety of shapes, sizes, and backgrounds—harmonizing an upbeat chorus as they attempted a loose-limbed, shuffle, ball change.

Viewing and listening to this beauty was transformative. Tears filled my eyes as I watched cancer patients tap their feet and weary caregivers—standing sentry behind wheelchairs—smile. I saw a woman in a burka stop and stare, her kohl-rimmed eyes the only portion of her visible.

For the first time, we strangers—from Addis Ababa to Kentucky—were bound together by a moment of beauty, rather than the fact that each of us were seeking healing, and answers.

The mediocre performance would have been castigated on stage, but there—where even the centuries-old artwork, encased behind glass, felt so fleeting—our feet tapped and our souls stood still.

In that harmonious collision of song and dance, I understood that pain itself does not become a vortex, annihilating beauty and joy. Conversely, not knowing if you have tomorrow clears your vision of the busyness of everyday.

For you then stop and savor the range of your child’s laughter; the image of your husband’s hands as he rinses earth from lettuce in a deep red bowl; the thrill of a sentence knitting together in your mind, melodious and sharp, as if it’s already been committed to paper; in the way a string of ants festoons a peony bud, chewing away the wax, causing the closed bloom to open, offering beauty to all who are aware of the fleeting nature of life, to breathe deep and be still.

On Thursday, the Mayo neurosurgeon informed us that she believes what we thought was tumor is, in fact, scar tissue. We are beyond grateful, for both this news and for this journey. Thank you for your prayers.