The Beauty in the Block

At the Hilton in Los Angeles the other night, I was tired but not exhausted and wanted to do a little writing before going to bed. I feel incomplete at the end of the day if I have not written; I have trouble falling asleep.  I believe Friedrich Nietzsche when he says, "Ten truths you must find during the day; otherwise you will seek truth during the night, and your soul will remain hungry."

So, feeling truth-deficient for the day, I pulled out my bright green, wide-ruled notebook and black uni-ball and sat down.  Unedited, this is what I wrote:

Sometimes it is good to just sit and write when you do not know what exactly you want to write about.  You take pauses between sentences, there is no stream, it is more like a light snow of thought, that may or may not stick.  It is a pretty thing to say I will write just to write.  Words are beautiful.  The love of words is beautiful in and of itself.  I love the word beauty.  I would love to name a daughter Beauty, but Heaven knows someone will never let that happen.  But I could call my girl Beauty, to me that could be her name, though on paper it was Scarlet or Juliet or Kirsten.  I could call her Beauty all the days of her life while I am in it, and after I am gone she will remember me that way; that I thought her beautiful each day, and when she looks into the mirror never will she question whether she is ugly.  There will be peace about her way.  She will know she is not ugly and quiet will be her thoughts of her own beauty, there will be no need for her to proclaim, I am beautiful! for I told her so over and again and once more.  She will be to me beauty personified.  Beauty in the flesh, the humble goddess, feeling in whispers by the river's edge.  To rest in the tall grass, marveling even at the friendly spiders, kissing up at the sun, and mostly her eyes on His small and glorious creations, breathing in the violet and the honeysuckle, will be plenty for her soul.  My Beauty, form of goodness and truth, in balance amidst the imperfections everywhere, and she someday with long gray hair, the way I hope my wife will be, but that is far away and now you see: when you sit and write because you love to write, Beauty whispers in your ear and the snow falls in the stream and carries you to Heaven or near and for a moment you cannot help but to believe life to be a dream, and the ink in your pen the cream.