What is your thing of beauty?

This thing of beauty I speak of, may be the most difficult thing I’ve ever tried to explain. I fear I may not get far, and my words may remain a spin of a thought, a whir of words… and confusion. But if I get across, it may be a thing of beauty, in itself.

It is that intrinsic thing inside of us. Inside each of us, completely unique to us. It’s what makes us strong, it’s what makes us flawed.

It’s that strange, intangible, incomprehensible thing that makes us who we are - it results in good, in keeping our state of grace, in rising to occasions; it causes us to shirk responsibilities, cause unhappiness to others, in failing to do what the world wants us to - it results in happiness, it results in frustration… the scenarios are many…

This thing of beauty may be unknown to us. Others may see it but often we may not. Even when it is the very force with which we may live our life.

It may be a superpower, it may be a flaw, it may be different things at different times, on different days...

To know it would be strength, to understand it, sheer magic. Even when it is easy to see it in others when we try... finding our own, may be elusive and slippery.

And even if we never come face to face with our own thing of beauty, it will always be that pivotal, unequivocal piece that makes us, us.

My words seem to move around in circles. Nothing concrete is being said - no examples to demonstrate. I am a storyteller who stops short of narrating the stories...

But in my head, are stories... stories lived and heard that exemplify the thing of beauty of its characters - a silvery gossamer thread – sometimes shining through the darkest of their flaws.

In my head, is a book of short stories and in each of these stories, are characters, who, even in the most trying of times and in the most flawed of states, retain their thing of beauty. Sometimes that thing of beauty is their undoing. The thing of beauty is often the reason for sadness and misfortune and unhappiness. Yet it rides and soars with a power. Either to the stars, or down to a deep earthly abyss.

Stories that I write with my heart - when I can’t sleep at night, or in a clear moment in the shower or whilst in the midst of something “important” when I should be paying more attention to the matter at hand, rather than listening to the stories in my head...

Stories written by my heart that may only stay there... Stories that may never touch paper…

I share this with you not to bring to light, the fact that there is yet another book of stories inside me that I may never have the will or energy to write...

I share the idea because these are strange times and we may need to search a little to find our silvery gossamer threads… our thing of beauty…

We may also need to be generous and notice the silvery gossamer somethings of those around us - those who we may be confined with...

For reveling in that beauty, we rise, and become human… and even in our most flawed actions, we retain the beauty…

And when we do... even if I may not have written a single page of that book, with our stories, we may be a compilation of my unwritten book...