Issue #41
Thanks so much for tuning into Good and Beautiful Things each week. If you enjoy something you read, why not pass it along to a friend?
Brown.
I knew that was what awaited me as I pedaled my bike through the neighborhood toward the beginning of the trail. I knew what to expect because a few days ago I’d walked the path and discovered to my dismay that November had turned my path of many colors into three shades of brown.
Boring. Blah. Monotone. That’s what I had to look forward to.
unlike previous seasons:
In my mind brown felt like a negative space, a void previously occupied by color. Brown was the vanilla flavor of the natural world, it was a background to make the real colors stand out more. (Some of you are distracted now, ready to fight for the honor of vanilla ice cream or maybe the color brown, but stay with me here.)
Once when I was walking with my husband on the same path a few years ago he said, “I love all the brown!” He didn’t say it ironically, he said it with admiration and joy.
What is there to find joyful about brown?
“It’s brown because everything’s dead,” I replied.
If anyone was meant to love brown, it would be my husband. We tease him about it still, about how it fits with his optimistic personality. He believes there is always something good in every person and situation and in that moment he saw the “good” in the color brown.
Brown has actually come up in our marriage before. He likes dark wood floors, I like light wood floors. If we see a country style house with a lot of wood showing on the inside while we’re watching tv, he’ll say, “You would paint all of that white wouldn’t you?” Of course, I say. Also, the main two colors in his home office: blue and brown. The main colors in the rest of our house: all of the colors except the non-color known as brown (the only place I lost was the dark wood floors that were here before we moved in).
///
On my way to the greenway, I prepared myself to be underwhelmed.
But I was also aware that my previous bike rides had trained me to find beauty on this trail. Like one of those old water diviners with a rod in hand, I couldn’t help but open my senses and tune into my surroundings.
Accompanying me on this particular journey (via podcast) was On Being’s Krista Tippet and poet Clint Smith.
I’d only been on the greenway a few minutes when I was struck by how the late afternoon sun made the ordinary brown field shimmer like a jewelry box full of topaz.1
Around another corner, the light filtered through the varied textures of brown and transformed everything into gold.
I stood ankle deep at the edge of the field to get a photo, suddenly aware that I was capturing the beauty of brown and I would have crow to eat back at home. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, said the devil on my shoulder.
Between Clint Smith and his deep reflections about the world (spoken in a voice born for giving weight and truth to his words) and the Midas touch on everything around me, I was already a bundle of sensitive nerve endings, divining beauty on my bike ride.
And the beauty wasn’t over yet.
As I got back on my bike a bell rang out behind me and to my delight a two-seater bike raced past me. During my many bike rides on this particular path, I’d never seen a tandem bike.
Next I caught a glimpse of two deer disappearing into the brush.
Then I saw a white tree illuminated, as if the sun was a black light creating an iridescent white glow from the two trunks and their branches.
Soon after that my bike ride came to an end.
Just as I knew what was coming when I started the bike ride, I knew what would be coming now that it was over.
It was time for confession. As much as my husband is known for being a brown enthusiast, I’m known for telling on myself without any outside compulsion.
I was pretty certain I could bring myself to admit to my husband that brown, under the right circumstances, could be beautiful. But I will stand by my opinion that vanilla is not a flavor.
Continue the Journey
A Poem
Listen to a poem read written and read by Clint Smith. Do you agree with me about his voice?
A Podcast
Here’s the podcast I listened to on my bike ride the following day.
If you’d like to support the writing and art that I create for this newsletter, you can now contribute to my art supply fund through “Buy me a Coffee”!
Words to Remember
“And the older I get now that my children are grown, especially, I feel myself becoming more and more what I most essentially am, and less my role in other people’s lives.”
-Margaret Renkl, from her interview with Kate Bowler
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee
P.S.-Is it easy for your to find beauty or does it take a particular tuning in on your part?
the golden yellow gemstone designated for people born in November—https://www.americangemsociety.org/birthstones/november-birthstones/topaz-overview/
I'm with you: vanilla is NOT a flavor and Clint Smith is a delight. I loved the poem you linked to and I enjoyed his book How the Word is Passed a few years ago. After hearing him read his poem, I think the audiobook narrator was not him, which is a darn shame. What a voice!
I love these photos of the brown turned to gold in the sunlight. Proof that the right lighting is transformative!