Friday, November 15, 2024

L.M. Montgomery and Our Mutual Love of Beauty




"Don't you just love poetry that gives you a
crinkly feeling up and down your back?"
 L.M. MONTGOMERY, Anne of Green Gables


I cannot say when I first became aware of beauty in the world around me. Perhaps it was when I was a little girl bending down in my grandma's garden to smell her pretty flowers. And being especially taken with the clove-scented blossoms—they might have been carnations or pinks (dianthus). I was in heaven when I sniffed their scent. And there was something unforgettable about those yellow and orange California poppies growing in her lawn, so bold and breezy showing up anywhere they pleased.
 
As a child enthralled with reading, I loved the 1950s beautiful illustrated Egermeier's Bible Story Book with its well-thumbed pages eventually read to shreds. Adoring the lithograph picture of Mary and Joseph with the Babe in swaddling clothes lying in a manger—it created such a safe and cozy feeling for me. I was especially aware of the beauty I saw at Christmastime. For how often I felt a similar crinkly feeling up and down my back when I caught sight of the season's first snowfall, or when I sat quiet as a mouse on the couch breathing in the wonder of the coloured lights on the tree. And to feel the wonderment at those Christmas cards, hanging from a string above me, alive with midnight blue skies studded with stars and pinpricks of light streaming through tiny earthen windows. Oh holy night, indeed.

As a girl, I mainly read books for the stories, for the adventure. I wasn't so keen on the descriptions of sunsets or landscapes or pretty vistas. I just wanted to know what happened next without all that 'fluffy' stuff. But I gradually came to appreciate those descriptive, imaginative scenes. Scenes where autumn branches sat in a vase on a table and firelight made shadows dance on a wall. And the heroine would sigh and feel better for this bit of beauty. Leaking from the pages, they soaked into my own soul.

Then came the season when I read anything I could find of Lucy Maud Montgomery's works. First it was her novels, such as the Anne or Emily stories, and The Blue Castle. Then I gobbled up her poetry, published letters, and published journals. As an aspiring writer, I noted her descriptive narration, her vivid imagery, and keen eye for detail as she celebrated the beauty of nature, her garden, and walks in the woods on a late November afternoon. I began to dream about how I could try to write the way she did. I'll never forget a summer evening long ago when I sat on the back step entranced as twilight fell on our neighbourhood after a beautiful day. A notebook in my lap and pen in my hand, my heart dearly wishing, as I yearned to describe the marvel of that evening, that I could describe its beauty in that wonderful Lucy Maud style. She inspired me to get on with living life as beautifully as I can and then write about it. I was—and still am—energized to create work that expresses my own wonderment at all that remains lovely in a broken world. And when I get to share it here with you, my heart bursts with a joy that leaves me content... and grateful.

I want to share a passage from Emily of New Moon which became one of my favourites:
"It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside—but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond—only a glimpse—and heard a note of unearthly music.  . . .

It never came twice with the same thing. Tonight the dark boughs against that far-off sky had given it. It had come with a high, wild note of wind in the night, with a shadow wave over a ripe field, with a grey bird lighting on her windowsill in a storm, with the singing of "Holy, holy, holy" in church, with a glimpse of the kitchen fire when she had come home on a dark autumn night, with the spirit-like blue of ice palms on a twilit pane, with a felicitous new word when she was writing down a 'description' of something. And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty." L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon, p. 7 - 8
That last line stands out as a marker—it and many others became transformative, defining moments when I came to recognize, and could admit to myself, that beauty remains the most inspirational and mysterious force in the world for me. And it makes me feel nearest to God. I came to see that if I could find the beauty, however tiny, in the midst of any given situation, I could carry on. Ms. Montgomery's writings gave me courage. They gave me hope there was a place inside my own God-given imagination where I could gather the beauty to hold onto in the midst of my own hard or sad times. Perhaps that's why I'm always tickled to see a simple dandelion living large as life in a fractured sidewalk. Surviving in a seemingly impossible place, living somehow as if in the best kind of soil, tended with the most loving care. It's a beauty to behold.

My wish for you this week... mercies new every morning, grace that's sufficient for whatever you face, joy to strengthen you in the midst, and peace that keeps your heart steady in the storm. Oh, and a generous dollop of good, plain fun to make you laugh out loud.


Heart hugs,
Brenda
Photo credits:
Image by TheOtherKev from Pixabay

My Autumn Schedule:
I post on Fridays


1 comment:

  1. Hello Brenda,
    Your post has me thinking about when I first became aware of beauty. I know I was very young. I loved bringing wildflowers into the house to place in empty jars filled with water. How sad I was when they never lasted very long. I loved the way my mother set the table, each piece of cutlery neatly arranged in its place. And when she brought out the bone china, the table looked fit for a queen.
    Those lines of Emily's "flash" have been ones that I've held in my heart for years, too. I re-read The Blue Castle a couple of weeks ago and find Valancy's descriptions of seasons on the island so lovely. L. M. Montgomery's descriptions of the world around her characters have inspired my writing. Like Anne when she first saw the "White Way of Delight" beauty "just satisfies me here - she put one hand on her breast - it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache."
    Wishing you a most lovely weekend full of beauty with the dollop of fun you wished for us.

    ReplyDelete

To My Beautiful Readers,

Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same. ~ Franz Peter Schubert

Thank you so much for leaving your 'footprint' here in my comment box. I do appreciate you taking a moment to share your thoughts today.

Brenda xo