B is for Beauty

'Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is Art' (Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet - 1803-1882)

There is a certain unclassifiable beauty surrounding every day life. Every where you look you are faced with examples; be it natural, individual, or purely an idea so abstract, there is little choice but to accept is as beautiful.

Trying to get my head around the idea that beauty can come in so many different shapes and sizes is a fact that has always left me somewhat perplexed. How is it that beauty can be seen in a completely different light by each individual person? And then, if we think in those terms, surely as a direct result of their view, each individual person is then affected by beauty in completely different ways. Whether I'm alone in this confusion or not, I will have to leave for you to decide, but how is it that each and every one of us can see one single thing from entirely different angles? It poses the question; is there a certain characteristic that an entity must have to enable it to fall into the 'beautiful' category? Is it merely an aura? Or is it something more, something engrained into the mind, into the soul, that emanates from within?

I recently took a trip to the top-most class Piccadilly store, Fortnum & Masons. Regarded by the large majority of it the influential class as an exclusive British icon, along with its exclusive price tags, this store is perhaps the metaphor of all that is beautiful. Immediately I can't help but wonder, is beauty and value intrinsically linked? Can you truly have one without the other? An interesting thought...yet admittedly, a somewhat disheartening one.

I look back to the store. The window display alone creates such a sense of elusiveness, that one can't help but be mesmerised. Standing outside, I see tourists and Londoners alike joined in what can only be described as utter awe. Is this then the second trait of beauty? An ability to become a integral join, an underlying connection, even for the shortest length of time, for those who otherwise continue as separate entities. What a wonderful thought that is...if one person can be joined with another, what better way than through beauty?

Yet what is it about this store that creates such a sense of beauty? I reflect on the sense of wonderment; is it the fact that for the briefest moment, one can imagine themselves living a different life, a life that for the general masses is just that little stretch out of reach? Is it the unashamed, unabashed pompousness, the idea of high class, of elegance, emanating with such pride that ignorance becomes an impossibility? The way in which everything is so perfectly exquisite that it seems to glow with a halo of radiance?

Whatever the answer is, if there even is one, I cannot help but come to the conclusion that whether you agree with beauty, whether you aspire to beauty or whether your mission in life is to ignore it completely, it has a way of affecting each and every one of us. A way of seeping into our lives, a way of motivating, propelling, altering each and every view point. It poses one last question; surely something so powerful, so worldly, must be acknowledged. Beauty is a part of our lives whether we welcome it or not. It is just a question of how it is dealt with.

A is for Adjusting

'The best thing we can do is make where we're lost look as much like home as we can' (Christopher Fry, Playwright)

I have often wondered what it is that inspires people to up sticks and go, to one day, just pack up their lives and move on. Granted, some people are made to be wanderers; never able to settle in any particular place for any particular period of time. But what is it about us as a human race that encourages so much change within our lives.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I found myself becoming one of those wanderers, squeezing my life into the boot of a car, leaving all that was real and known to me. I was London bound, caving in to the desires of city life. Having always been a country girl, I couldn't ever imagine how I was going to survive such an adjustment. All I knew was that the time had come to swap the calmness of the ever-green, ever-silent countryside for the tumult of the fast-paced, highly-strung urban jungle. Yes there was fear. Of course there was uncertainty. But God, was there excitement. 

Adjusting is one of those nothing terms, one of those ideas that is incapable of helping anyone. You hear it all the time; 'Oh just give yourself some time to adjust', as if you're magically going to wake up one day and find that all those traits, habits, ways of life that previously marked you as an outside, a newcomer, have suddenly...disappeared. So if this isn't the case, if this is just one of those cliches, then where is it we can turn for help?

I found out soon enough. The only feasible way of fitting into such an image-conscious, media-obsessed, self-indulgent climate, is to change yourself. Of course I could spend my time spouting on about how I'm not vain, taking the moral high ground about never allowing anyone or anything to change me. But that's like being thrown in the deep end, without ever learning to swim, and not even trying to save yourself. 9/10 of you would fight, would let their instinct overwhelm them in order to protect their lives, their bubble. Fight or Flight, that animalistic preconception. And so the same applies here - London was the deep end of my new life. I was the one being thrown in. My only option? Adjust.