Gentle instructions for finding beauty in the humdrum

Gentle instructions for finding beauty in the humdrum

by Fern Marshall

Go outside. Notice. Collect fragments of joy—the vibrating chest of a blackbird singing on a bare tree in November, a purple haze of lupins lining a train track. Hold them close—in your heart, in your palm. Write them down. Talk about them. Take a photograph. Look up. Look down. Look at a dandelion close-up, and then look at everything all at once. Look at the colours. Listen birdsong, bee-hum, rustling grasses. Touch soft velvet leaf, delicate petal, fallen feather. Smell fennel, pineapple weed, blushing rose. Seek small, scrappy beaches and tiny harbours with bobbing boats. Look up—peach sunset, translucent moon, glinting weathervanes. Look down—pastel chalk drawings, damp petals, puddles reflecting the sky. Find a park and walk barefoot, then lie back on a constellation of daisies and clover and watch the pale bellies of swifts swoop overhead. Find a lilac tree or a tiny garden full of roses and visit it each year when it blooms. Learn the names of the flowers and trees you see and greet them as friends. In almost every moment, there is a piece of the natural world nearby to steady you—a square of window, a breath of fresh wind, a tiny flower. Pay attention to the seasons, the shifting skies, the ever-changing moon. Watch plants bud, bloom, and fade away. Let it remind you that nothing is permanent. Go outside in all weathers, in clothes that keep you dry and warm, but remember to turn your face to the skies. Let the rain and hail and snow kiss your face.