Beauty

...I ask you, how much beauty
can a person bear? It is
heavier than ugliness, even the burden
of emptiness is nothing beside it

.... I am not a strong woman. It isn't easy
to want so much, to walk
with such a heavy basket, either
bent reed, or willow.

--Louise Gluck, from "Baskets, 4"

When I awoke this morning, my husband asked me how I was--even thought it was three a.m. Snow torpedoes to the ground, tangling in the pine branches outside of my window. Three girls walked by me today, smiling and giggling. I felt Charles Lamb wiggling today as I sat in class beaming over syllabi. How much beauty can a person bear? I don't know, but each day the endurance level must increase or we would all burst. How do you carry the weight of beauty? How do you communicate it? Daily I claim, "I am not a strong woman" and yet at the same time I am not willing to let go of this immense and wonderful burden.

I love the idea that beauty has more weight than ugliness or emptiness. The shape of a child's hand is more substantial than the anger of nations. An embrace is more significant than the loneliness of years. Granted, these small beauties surround us and add to us just as the pains do--the fact that both are intensely real could be part of their reality. Can beauty exist without ugliness or emptiness? Perhaps that is the wrong question. Can human eyes recognize beauty without contrast?

Daily, I surprise myself with my desires--even in my bounteous lifestyle! How could I want more? Despite marrying the person who fits me best, carrying his child, celebrating health, safety, freedom, truth, learning...how can i find room to want more? Even silly things: spring, ice cream, brown shoes, more energy, a giving spirit. Simultaneously, these desires increase my awareness of the beauty: language, water, warmth, sticky notes.

What is the basket that can carry beauty?