The Serious Business of Beauty

Dear sister,

I've been thinking about beauty and rebellion.

Perhaps because it's election week, and the world feels particularly determined to remind us of all the things we cannot control.

There is so much happening that deserves our attention, our outrage, our resistance, and our participation. So much that demands we remain awake and willing to confront things that are genuinely terrible.

And I want to talk about why, in the middle of all of that, I still believe in making a beautiful life.

Perhaps especially in the middle of all of that.

I know there are people who regard the pursuit of beauty and pleasure as frivolous when the world is burning. As though enjoying a beautiful meal, arranging flowers, or spending an afternoon making something lovely means we have somehow failed to appreciate the seriousness of our circumstances.

I understand the impulse. There are days when enjoying anything can feel almost indecent in the face of so much suffering.

But I think we have confused suffering with solidarity.

We have been taught, in a hundred subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that being a good person requires us to be perpetually troubled. That our exhaustion is evidence of our commitment. That pleasure is something we should feel a little guilty about when other people are struggling.

And I wonder who benefits from that arrangement.

Because a woman who is exhausted, frightened, isolated, and numb is a woman with very little left to give herself, much less the world she wants to change.

A woman who is expected to work constantly, worry constantly, consume an endless stream of terrible news, and still somehow remain pleasant and productive is being asked to surrender an extraordinary amount of her life.

Her attention. Her imagination. Her vitality. Her capacity for delight.

And eventually, perhaps, her belief that anything better is possible.

I refuse to believe that surrendering those things makes us more virtuous.

Beauty feeds rebellion.

I believe that with my whole heart.

Beauty reminds us that the world contains things worth protecting. Pleasure reminds us that our bodies are capable of experiences beyond labor, anxiety, and pain. Art reminds us that human beings can imagine something that does not yet exist and bring it into being.

And joy, particularly joy shared with other people, can remind us that we belong to one another in ways that no institution can entirely define.

These are not insignificant things.

They are among the very things that make resistance possible.

I also want to be careful about something.

When I talk about creating a beautiful life, I am not talking exclusively about money, lovely houses, beautiful clothes, or the ability to travel whenever the mood strikes.

I enjoy those things. I make no apologies for enjoying them.

But beauty is not the private property of women with disposable income.

Sometimes beauty is the song someone sings while preparing dinner after an exhausting shift. Sometimes it is a small garden growing in an otherwise unforgiving neighborhood. Sometimes it is a room full of women laughing together when nearly everything outside that room feels frightening.

Sometimes beauty is a carefully prepared meal made from very little.

Sometimes it is lipstick.

Sometimes it is music.

Sometimes it is the extraordinary tenderness of someone making another person feel welcome, safe, and seen.

And sometimes it is the only thing that gets a person through another day.

I don't believe beauty becomes less necessary as life becomes more difficult.

I believe it becomes more necessary.

The people with the least power are too often expected to survive on the least pleasure. To be grateful for whatever scraps of safety, dignity, and comfort they can secure. To postpone joy until their circumstances improve.

But a human being is entitled to more than mere endurance.

We are entitled to experiences that remind us we are alive.

We are entitled to delight, to tenderness, to imagination, to the experience of something beautiful that exists for no purpose beyond being beautiful.

And those things ought to belong to everyone.

There is a kind of sovereignty in reclaiming even a small portion of your life from systems that would happily consume every available minute of it.

Choosing where your attention goes.

Deciding what you will make room for.

Cultivating friendships, pleasures, and rituals that have nothing to do with your usefulness.

Refusing to let the people and institutions that create suffering also determine the entire emotional atmosphere of your existence.

None of this substitutes for political action, material change, or showing up for people who need us.

A beautiful life does not absolve us of responsibility to one another.

But neither does responsibility require us to abandon beauty.

We need both.

We need the capacity to recognize injustice and the imagination to envision something better. We need the willingness to confront suffering and the ability to experience joy. We need to remain engaged with the world without allowing its worst conditions to become the totality of our lives.

I think we need to be very suspicious of any arrangement that demands our constant labor while offering us so little opportunity to feel fully alive.

So this week, whatever happens, I hope you find something beautiful.

I hope you make something beautiful.

I hope you share something lovely with someone who needs it.

I hope you participate in the world with your eyes open and your heart intact.

And I hope you remember that protecting your capacity for pleasure does not make you less serious about the work of making things better.

It may be one of the ways you sustain that work.

Because we are not fighting merely for the right to survive.

We are fighting for lives worth living.