The other day, I was driving our son through a nice Christmas snow so he could volunteer at the museum, and he said, ‘you know, mom, everything is pretty with snow on it.’
I agreed. The world is so beautiful when covered with snow. And I have to think that the last bird mentioned in the twelve days of Christmas is the most beautiful of them all. And I want to be reminded to look for the beauty that surrounds us, like in the snow.
It could be easy to look at the snow and only see needing to shovel it or how hard it is to drive in it. But it also makes everything look so pretty, and it makes the world glow. It’s such a common thing, and it’s everywhere, but it is beautiful.
We have a pair of cardinals that like to sit in the tree outside our window. The male is such a vivid color, especially against the snow and the bark of the bare tree. The female is the same shape and just as graceful, just s beautiful. Together they will make another generation of cardinals that will flit in the tree in years to come. I don’t know how many generations I have already watched.
We have old windows, and on nights when it is cold and damp enough, we can wake up to feathers of frost blooming on them. I dread ever getting new windows because they don’t have that little bit of beauty anymore.
When my mother was living with us before she died, she had a teddy bear she loved dearly. She was so beautiful when cuddling it.
Every where we turn, our lives are surrounded by beauty. If we define beauty too narrowly, however, we will miss it. Defining it broadly— sun glinting off ice, a brown bird with the promise of more, an old woman’s smile— and our lives are full of beauty.
And the world certainly needs more of it.
So when I remember the swans-a-swimming, I will think of beauty and try to remember to look for it everywhere, even where I don’t expect to find it.