Me:
I do think we could have a deeper philosophical discussion on each of our theories about this: “A moment in time is beautiful because what it can tell us, not just because it happens to happen.” Probably gets way too deep, but I think, to some extent, I believe that things are beautiful just because they happen.
Hannah:
My brother is that way, as far as things being beautiful because they happen. It’s part of his faith as a rabbi- to see and take note of the small things in life is a mitzvah, a religious moment owed to his God. I totally understand that view, and actually if you wanted to lean into it a little more I’d say just dive in on the description. If it’s beautiful because it Is, show us what it Is, give us the grains of dirt and sunstreaks that make it itself.
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Second, in a note from an editor regarding a recent collection of poetry, the editor wrote something like this (paraphrasing): happenings are beautiful because of what they can tell us, not just because they happen.
I have been mulling over it and I’m still not sure I agree with her. Might things be beautiful just because they happen? As humans, we want to have things our way. We want cars so we can travel fast and far on roads. We want tall buildings so that we can cram more people into cities. We want our lives to mean something. And we want our art to mean something too.
Why is all the most popular art focused on the same handful of themes? Love, violence, success, failure. Is there a place in human art for a backyard to just be a backyard without personifying it? Without analogizing it to the ecstasies and miseries to which we are accustomed because we are human?