Something pretty in the ruins (I will write this well to remember it well).

It’s been a…tough summer. Challenging summer. Lot of good memories summer. But also a blast of getting hit with…challenges to deal with. Not the kind where people you love are dying. But the kind where you keep getting knocked off your feet, things you need to work stop working, and life keeps coming faster and faster. That kind.

But these things happen.

I’m not happy, but I’m hopeful.

There is a distinction. And amidst the pragmatic plogging along that is the execution-part of Hope, there are many beautiful moments. They get forgotten or swirled into the winds if I don’t make a conscious effort to archive them; these rememberings are important.

Here are 11 things that made today beautiful.

Waking up in the early hours, in our own bed, to two little squirming, smelly bodies who are separating me from my wife; a few feet away that might as well be in another galaxy for the definitive wall they build in separating us. Yet in separating us they join us; joined as parents to this 3- and 6-year old and their older siblings who will forever be a part of our shared identity. Is this a catalyst for good sleep in the present? I suspect not. But here is beauty.

I know the world knows about Brandi Carlisle. And probably a huge chunk of the world has seen or heard her video for The Story. I guess I had a while back, because I had it on an old playlist and was cranking it while working…and I fell in love with it. Apparently 50 million viewers on YouTube have also loved it too. Remember: there are fresh discoveries of popular things to be made. Here is beauty. ( Link to The Story on YouTube )

A 16-year old reads Shel Silverstein at the breakfast table to her 3-year old brother, pointing out different words for him to recognize and sound out. That is beauty.

Two boys play with big-wheeled trucks on our front porch. It is marvelous to see the way play transitions from one thing to the next, day to day, week to week, month to month. They’ve never been big ‘car boys,’ in terms of being attracted to vroom-vrooming and zoom-zooming things around. My brother-in-law Micael gifted them a couple trucks a while back, and every few months they’ll go through a day or two of pulling them out and coming up with all kinds of new ways to play with them, often involving string, tape, and competitions that feel less about moving vehicles than about who can create the most Byzantine rules. This is beauty.

A six-year old takes out my old drill press - one gifted to me by my uncle years back - and builds out his grand scheme. I suggest he begin by learning the mechanics of how to drill holes. He considers my suggestion for the length of time it takes for a hummingbird to flutter twice, and then departs from that suggestion back to his brainchild, which is to build an elaborate structure out of old wood, and possibly it will have wheels. He works mightily at this, and his success at actualizing the structure he’s built in his head is roughly analogous to asking a dozen 3-year olds to rebuild The Great Pyramid in a week. He is intent and focused and throws himself mightily into learning, and eventually he manages to get some holes through a piece of wood, which is a good start for building a giant structure. Here, I see beauty.

Our four children gather together in the living room early on a summer afternoon. Numbers 1 and 3 play a vigorous round of Battleship. Number 4 watches them with a casual but complete interest. Number 2 is perched behind them studying chess moves with matching focus. The gathering of these people and these things is a scene of beauty.

I work on our back deck and back of house and bedroom, which have a variety of issues needing a mix of repair and renovation. I am not happy about this. In fact, I am very discouraged and overwhelmed, and any end to this is hard to imagine, let alone see right now. But I have my physical health, I have many of the tools I need to address the situation, we have a home with 95% functioning walls, I have a brain that functions well enough to figure out some of the problem-solving on my own, I have people people I can call on to ask for guidance or question-answering outside my scope of understanding (thanks Dad), and I have people in my household I love, who love me, and who are also healthy. It’s hard to focus on these things, rather the many things falling apart. But I write often to remember, and remembering this well will someday be a remembrance, I hope, of beauty.

Our goat is missing. I do a lap of our field and woods. Nothing. A second lap. I go deeper. There…there he is. Stuck in a little tightly-knotted bunch of trees and branches. I extricate him and he head-butts thank you. I have done something good for another living thing. There is always beauty in that.

I sit, filthy from outdoor work, with Becca, and we silently enjoy chocolate ice cream bars together. This is bliss and beauty.

A 13-year old by helps his mom make supper. Tofu, pasta, fresh-picked tomatoes. I play hide-and-seek, indoor, with the younger boys. There is always, always beauty in these two things.

We eat supper in the living while watching The Princess Bride. This is how to end a day. It is beauty.

Let me always find some in every day.