We're Going on a Beauty Hunt

01/March Edition

Mar 07, 2025

Dear Reader,

A friend of mine used to take her young daughters on a “beauty hunt”. Sometimes it was a walk around the neighborhood, other times it was a visit to a local plant nursery. Years later, the phrase still sticks in my mind, a wonderful variation of the classic children’s song “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”.

Part of the song goes like this:

What a beautiful day!
Oh look! A deep, dark cave.
Can’t go over it,
Can’t go under it,
Can’t go through it…

We’re all going through challenging things, some light and momentary, some long and seemingly unending. Just like the song, we can’t go around the hard things but as we’re going through them, beauty can buoy our hearts along the way.

My friend Jennifer mentions the question of how to live amidst the twists and turns of this life:

“One of the ways I have developed my answer to this question over time has been to tune my eyes to scan for goodness and beauty, and my mind to name it. Even in the bleak midwinter, I have learned to keep watch for the light.”

-Jennifer Searls

A collection from a month of hunting beauty:

Beauty in Words of Encouragement

(1) The community where I teach theater constantly surprises me with their kindness. Kindness shouldn’t be such a surprise in a community of mostly women but in my experience, it is. Last week one of my students handed me a little package from the leaders/mothers.

Package from the leaders/mothers where I teach theater

(2) Our youngest daughter turned sixteen last month. My husband and I took this little blank book (made by another daughter) and added sixteen things we love about her plus some photo stickers. Her love language is words of encouragement. A few days later I saw that she’d added them to the epic collage wall in her bedroom.

Beauty in Handmade Things

(1) On her day off from being an ER nurse, my oldest daughter decided to learn how to make paper mache so she made a paper mache fish. Just. because.

Paper Mache fish made by my oldest daughter

(2) She also learned how to make paper stars to decorate her new apartment.

(3) I commissioned her to make some illustrations that I hope to use as projections for my theater class play and her first sketch is this delightful dragon.

(4) As I mentioned, my youngest just turned sixteen. For her birthday she said she wanted me to let my hair turn gray (instead of dying it) and for me to start wearing more colors than all black. Why is your birthday all about me, I kept asking her. I have started adding more color to my outfits but I’m not ready to ditch the henna dye so for now the best I could offer her was this drawing of myself with gray hair and a colorful outfit. (I promise she’s a normal teenager, she also asked for a new phone and a car.)

Drawing for my daughter on her 16th Birthday

Beauty in Artists When They’re Honest About Their Fears

This year I’m wrestling with the steep learning curve of returning to my theater roots after a long break. Each time I hear an artist admit that they struggle with anxiety, it normalizes the feelings as just a part of the process.

(1) In the documentary American Symphony, Jon Batiste allows the viewers to see behind his stylish, extroverted outer shell. We see the darker moments as he prepares for a symphony at Carnegie Hall:

“You have to confront the brutal facts of the reality that you might not pull it off but at the same time have unwavering faith, completely unwavering faith, and you have to do both at the same time.”

-Jon Batiste, from the documentary, American Symphony

(2) Cyndi Lauper, age 71, on her farewell tour, admitted:

“I’m usually having a heart attack before I go on….you told all these people to come and if you suck, it’s your fault,” said Lauper.

One of the other guests asked her if she really experiences those feelings every night and she said yes. But then she continued:

”Before I go on, I take a deep breath and I say, ‘Okay, you think you can’t do it but you can and also just be who you are right now…You don’t have a Superman cape and you wanna be Superman, but you’re not, you’re just you. So then you let go and just hope that…you can ride the spirit.”

-Cyndi Lauper

(3) And just yesterday I heard the great film composer, Hans Zimmer, share honestly about his nerves as he approached some of the projects that are now beloved by so many.

Beauty in Finding What You Were Made to Do

(1) Our son is in school for film production but until this semester I’m not sure if he really knew why he was there. This semester he’s finding his stride between photography and film camera classes. There’s an energy about him that I haven’t seen since he was making LEGO movies in the garage when he was ten.

A photo of my son taken by a fellow photography classmate

(2) With a theater production coming up next month our living room is a minefield of dragon costume parts and magical LED lanterns. This conversation in between me and my teenage daughter happened early this week:

Me: Can I dress you up as a knight tomorrow? Once the cloak arrives?
Teenage Daughter: (sigh) What people don’t know about having a drama teacher as a parent…

Her answer was: yes and also can I keep the cloak?

Beauty in Color

(1) Even brown can be nice (2) a Nashville sunset (3) a top-down day in the VW Beetle (4) an acai bowl (5) an array of sweets

Beauty in Friendship

My daughters’ cats are true friends, fighting and loving and eating and playing together. I get photos of them several times a week. In the first photo, they’re enjoying a snow day and in the second they're snuggling when Chirp had a sore paw.

Beauty in Leaving it All Behind

It was just last weekend and it already feels like a month since my husband and I snuck away to a cabin and visited some waterfalls.

What about you? What beauty and light have you noticed in the midst of this roller coaster life?

We're Going on a Beauty Hunt

01/March Edition

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