prospecting for beauty

As I wandered along the beach a couple of days ago, a bloke with a metal detector traced a methodical path on the sand. As I passed he was digging deep with his sieve and the expression on his face was like our King Charles Cavalier Spaniel when she buries her nose into an interesting smell in the sand. Metal detecting is not an activity I am drawn to, but I did admire his searching determination.

A couple of hours later I was on an aeroplane doing my own prospecting. Or maybe it wasn’t prospecting as much as awareness, but in any case, I struck gold in an unusual place.

I was listening to a podcast recommended by my friend Nik. The deeply calming voice of Krista Tippett was in conversation with the late Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue. Coincidentally their topic was the Inner Landscape of Beauty, which was a wonderful and stretching dialogue, but I found myself mesmerised by the sounds of their voices. John almost sings his sentences which are strung out with slow poetic extravagance, his Irish accent giving an elevating effect to his wisdom. The dulcet tones of Krista’s enquiry and engagement intertwined and offered a duet of aural beauty that caused me to smile involuntarily on the inside.

But even that wasn’t where I stumbled on my most satisfying encounter with beauty on this routine Jetstar flight from the Gold Coast to Avalon. And no, it wasn’t out the window either, even though my photo albums have more than their fair share of clouds and horizons from 30,000 feet.

My vice on the Jetstar route is a black coffee with the cheese and crackers. The fact it has been a habit buy for a long time betrays that this isn’t the first time I’ve enjoyed the combination of flavours and textures. But for whatever reason, maybe enhanced by the spare seat beside me where my menu order sat, and no doubt by the discussion of beauty in my earpods, I had more room to sit back and savour.

There is something pure and uncomplicated about the combination. The coffee is surprisingly smooth for an airline brew, but with the complexity of bitterness, acidity and fruity layers. Disposable cup - hmmm. I could travel with my Fressko but I don’t, so it’s the aboriginal art styled cup, which I kinda like. Clix and tasty cheese. The cracker adds crunch, a light sprinkle of salt and an ever so delicate touch of sweet. The cheese offers a bitter sour and creamy complement to complete the perfection.

Maria peered out the window with earpods in, others around me flipped through magazines, played games or watched films on their phones and some chatted aimlessly with their neighbours. Meanwhile I sipped slowly and intentionally. I took small bites from the cracker and cheese and immersed myself in the textures and flavours. I got lost in the beauty of it all, I hoped irrationally that my coffee wouldn’t end, or at least that the crackers and cheese would last longer.

The cliché reminds us to smell the roses. But we all know they are figurative roses. Sometimes the rose is an airline coffee in a disposable cup. It seems to me that my encounter with beauty, this weird but authentic appreciation of airline refreshments was facilitated by two practices;

1. Unhurried time. Yes, I had been listening to a podcast, but for me, going for hours in the car or on a plane without reading, listening or watching is quite normal. It’s a decluttering practice.

2. Awareness, a radar that is constantly scanning for beauty.

Beauty doesn’t need a reason. Beauty doesn’t need an audience. But beauty, or at least the savouring of it, offers a reprieve from the ugly demands of status hungry productivity. Beauty stops us. Beauty elevates our senses so our souls become receptacles of good. Beauty invites us to pause rationality and savour feeling, to recognise the inherent wonderfulness of life, of creativity, or good design, of nature herself.

With everything that is going on in the world, heck I need to see, feel, taste, smell and touch more beauty. To savour beauty slowly is not a luxury, but a critical custom in a world that is losing touch with so much that matters.