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“None of us are the people we want to be right now.” – me, talking to the 7-year-old.

Today is the 56th day since I held an in-person meeting. It has been 67 days since I drove the kiddo to school.

The early days are a blur now – the hunt for the supplies, the postings on Facebook where people had found toilet paper, artists doing online sharing of their work, companies announcing waivers of payments, or free offerings. In a tiny way, it felt like the way the US “came together” after 9-11, for us old enough to remember that.

But as is almost inevitable here in the US, that is now behind us as the virus has become politicized. Of course, that isn’t true for everyone, but the drive to “reopen the economy”, while our numbers of cases and death continue to climb, and the extreme right’s demand for their “freedom” has pushed science and fact-based decision making to the sidelines.

And it is frustrating. In some ways, it would be easier had this happened back in 1995 or so, before the proliferation of online media when every idiot with a cell phone wasn’t a potential broadcaster, when a discredited doctor couldn’t make a video filled with disinformation and it just goes viral, when I didn’t know how awful people were being in some other state. However, that means we wouldn’t know each other either, you and I.

For those who are wondering, my own life is going pretty well. I have developed a routine, and my natural introversion and homebody ways are doing OK with this. I go for long walks each day with the kid, I am getting home projects done, and our family eats together every day. My income is varied enough that I am OK – at least for a while – economically, and no one in my inner circle has gotten sick.

But just because I am not sick does not mean I am OK. None of us are OK, and I wish we were at a place as a country where we could deal with that.  But until that happens, I will just look for the beauty where I can find it.

Five beautiful things

• The Amplifier project has dozens of high resolution justice oriented posters made by a variety of artists, some very well-known such as Shepard Fairey (of the Obama Hope icon) available for free download. (We have three of them framed in our dining room).
• This is perhaps the most beautiful essay I have read about living in the world right now.
• This short animation is astoundingly beautiful: The Story of Flowers
• A drone disguised as a hummingbird gets an, uhhhm, bird’s eye view of a monarch butterfly swarm and it is literally breath-stopping.
• Many of us are making more bread these days, but this baker made theirs beautiful as well.

“When I am in that darkness, I do not remember anything about anything human.” —Angela of Foligno (1248–1309)

In every renovation, building project, there are two parts – the pretty part and the ugly part.

The pretty part is what you are building toward – the end result, the reason you ripped out that wall, you pulled up those bushes, the inspiration derived from a picture you saw on Pinterest or in a magazine whose page is now ripped out and on your refrigerator. The pretty part is what you want the world, or at least your little section of it, to look like.

But to get there, you have to go through the ugly part. You have to have visqueen hanging in your house, you have to have a dumpster in your front yard, you have to have sawdust everywhere, you live with a pile of mulch in your driveway for a month.

And if you are not careful, the ugly part will wear you down. You will fall into despair, and will wonder if your dream will ever come to pass, if you will survive this, if the page hanging on your refrigerator is worth all this… mess.

Yesterday I cut down a hedge that surrounded our patio and took down a 12-foot-tall landscape screen that was 40 feet long. The task involved chainsaws, a sledgehammer, and garden loppers. And honestly? It looks like hell right now. Brush everywhere. Sawdust on everything. My arms have deep scratches. The ugly fence the screen was, well, screening is now in full view. I am ass deep in the ugly part.

But if I hang on, if I can just get through it, this summer I am building a 384 square foot deck over the site of the previous patio, that will have a magnificent view of the backyard, that will act as an extension of our living room, that will dramatically enhance our enjoyment of this house. And yes, I have a whole board on Pinterest devoted to this deck.

All of this is true, but yes, it is all metaphor, too. There is a lot of ugly right now. Things are falling apart. What was previously broken is being unveiled. And some of us wonder if it will ever be beautiful again.

But it will if we see it through. If we hang on, if we keep the vision in our heads of that better world we dream of, if we do not quit, then it can be beautiful – not like before, but better than before.

But first, we have to get through the ugly parts.

Five beautiful things

• Like many folk my age, I grew up on Looney Tunes on Saturday morning. This collection of 90 vintage Looney Tunes films is everything. I am slowly working through them, and while some are cringe-worthy, most hold up well.
• The New Yorker did a beautiful photo essay tracking 24 hours in New York under the Pandemic. This is not one of the ugly parts, for sure.
• A few weeks ago would have been the peak of cherry blossom season at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Sadly, the garden is closed because of Covid-19, but this lovely video walkthrough is stunning. (Here is a short drone film to give you a bird’s eye view.)
• Kevin Kelly is one of my internet heroes, and may really be the world’s most interesting man. He just turned 68 and composed a list of 68 pieces of advice. Lots of good stuff here, as well as some snark.
• Several of my Psychologist and social worker friends shared this very helpful list of resources from the World Health Organization about coping with adversity during times of stress. (Sound familiar?)

Reading

I am not doing as much reading during this pandemic-related pause as I thought I would be, but one book I have really enjoyed is Lloyd Khan’s The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building and Gardening. Lloyd is the real deal – he was doing this stuff long before the rise of Instagram and Pinterest “backyard farmers.” He is very realistic, but with his head firmly in the clouds. The photography is beautiful, I love his aesthetic, and it has driven me to change my thinking about home and what that means, as well as what it would mean to imagine living here for at least 46 years. Highly recommended.

“Bring what you have, and ask for what you need.” – Gareth Higgins

Good morning!

I am Hugh Hollowell, and this is Life is So Beautiful, a newsletter about finding the beautiful when it’s hard to – and maybe especially when it’s hard to.

I grew up in a house with a father who revered quotes. You know, short, pithy sayings that usually convey a point of view or moral argument. Like, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” Benjamin Franklin said that, and come to think of it, Franklin figured large in the quote library that lives inside my dad’s head.

Because of this, I guess it is natural that I too love quotable snippets, although I tend to collect them from less famous people. Like my friend David LaMotte, who once told me that “You are changing the world, whether you want to or not.” Or my buddy Brian Ammons, who opens worship services with the brilliant (and radical) phrase, “You are all welcome here. And all of you is welcome here.” Or, from his husband Gareth Higgins, who organizes gatherings and says that you should “Bring what you have, and ask for what you need.”

I recently came across an interview with Fiona Apple, who is promoting her new album, and in it, she says that her decision to release a new album now doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but that this is what she knows how to do. And that line – “This is what I know how to do” gives language to what has been going through my head the last 40 days or so we have been in quasi-isolation.

Because right now, the world is a hot freaking mess, and all of us are trying to find our way in it. And maybe pumping out two newsletters (1, 2) and starting a podcast are not the most obvious ways to help the rest of the world in the midst of this pandemic, but it is what I know how to do; it is what I can bring to the table, and then it is up to me to ask for what I need for the rest of it.

 Five Beautiful Things

• A 2-hour tour of Switzerland, as seen from the cab of a train. Imagine this being the scenery you see everyday? I want to have a party now, where I can put this on the TV to play in the background.
• This will only appeal to a small subset of you folks (or maybe not, since we are all cooking more), but one of the happiest points of my day right now is when I log onto Facebook and see that Jacques Pepin has posted another short how-to video – something he has been doing quite a lot while in isolation.
• Over on Instagram, there are virtual tours of Frank Lloyd Wright houses.
• Paul Graham is a venture capitalist. He and I don’t have a lot in common. But this essay about the brevity of life, something he really only discovered after becoming a parent, really punched me in the gut. It feels particularly pertinent right now, as we fear that so many people we love will die.
• Ariel views of Hong Kong’s fountains. These are so lovely.

And if you get a sec, check out my new podcast, and I would appreciate it if you left a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews really do help.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
– From Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Hi there.

I’m Hugh Hollowell, and this is Life is So Beautiful, a newsletter about finding the beauty in the world around you, even when it feels like the whole world has stopped.

My wife and I were talking last night about how, for us personally, our life feels both completely normal and totally unhinged. We are both pretty introverted, I have an office in my home, and when I’m not there, most of my work is on an urban farm with 1 or 2 other people. She is a stay at home mom these days and being immunosuppressed after her heart transplant, we are both super-aware of germs and live with the fear of catching things.

But.

We also miss family dinners out in restaurants. Face to face meetings in coffee shops. Family outings to the museum or the movies. The pleasure of shopping for groceries and it not feel like The Hunger Games. Browsing a bookstore for hours while sipping a hot chocolate. Sharing a meal with friends. Going to church.

It turns out, Sartre was only half right. Hell IS other people. But so is heaven.

I was talking to a friend the other day about this huge slowdown and wondered out loud what of this will stick after it is over. Will all of us who made our own bread keep doing it? Folk who are now cooking regularly, some for the first time in their lives, will they continue? Will we keep doing video meetings? Will more people work from home than before, now that we have proven we can?

One thing I hope sticks in my personal life is the long walks the 7-year-old and I have been going on each day. We walk about a mile each day around our neighborhood as a way to give me some exercise and to spend his pent-up energy. While you would suspect it would be boring, walking in a given neighborhood every day, in fact the opposite is happening – we are coming to know it in new ways.

We are telling stories and sharing memories of the people who live in the houses whose occupants we know, and making up stories about the occupants of the houses where we don’t. He can now not only tell you the difference between wisteria and azaleas, but he will tell you why wisteria is pretty to look at but bad for the environment. There is a creek that crosses our neighborhood, and we manage to cross it three times each day in our walks. And when we see our neighbors and friends in their yards, we stand an appropriate distance and pass the day.

I really hope this keeps up. It’s the best part of my day.

What are you doing now that you hope you sustain after this is over?

Five Beautiful Things

• There have been so many examples of artists sharing their work from home – here is Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Instagram account, where he is playing requests on his piano in his living room, with occasional cameo appearances by his dog.
• As humans quit moving about, the rewilding of the world has begun.
• Roy Davis is a sculptor who makes wooden movement machines. I profile a lot of art in this here letter, but I would buy one of these in a heartbeat (if I had an extra $3,000).
• This time-lapse of a sunflower is simple and mesmerizing.
• Thai fruit carving is a thing. I love the sheer amount of effort that goes into creating something so delicate and beautiful that has a life expectancy measured in hours.

Bonus:

I have been loving the collections of artistic and cultural enrichment ideas everyone is posting – here is a huge one, with lots of amazing links and sources. If we are only going to be traveling whilst sitting on our couch for the foreseeable future, at least we can see beautiful, amazing things.

Reading:

It’s long and heavy, but somewhat hopeful. This article, Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance, does a good job of showing why we have to stop the world if we want to survive this current epidemic. Basically, we are buying time.

Housekeeping:

Despite launching it at the worst time in human history to launch something new, I am heartened by the response to my second newsletter, Hopeful Resistance. Because I have learned nothing about timing, I am launching yet another new thing next week! Patrons will learn about it this weekend, but the rest of you will have to wait until next week. After a winter full of depression and slog, it feels good to be creating again.

* * *

Well, that is it for this week. I hope you have a great week, and that your life is filled with beautiful things. If you see something beautiful this week, I hope you will let me know about it, and if one of my five I shared today struck you in a special way, I hope you will let me know about that, too.

If you want to support this project, you can sign up to be a Patron or buy me a book or forward this email to your friends. And if someone did forward this to you, you can get your own subscription here.