Survival and Elegance

I think it was Maya Angelou who said "Surviving is important, but thriving is elegant". I'm not sure how elegant I look (or feel) lately, but I do prefer thriving when given the choice between the two. It's just Winter seems bent on taking that elegance from our life.

Take shoes, for example. I generally wear a rather ugly wool covered pair of Merrells with rubber bottoms- not so that I'll look elegant, but so that I don't fall when I'm walking through slush and ice and snow. Now that the snow has melted some, and there's just a bit of that gray salt-crusted mess lingering on the curbs, I may not have to wear my trusted all weather shoes anymore. But I doubt I'll go straight to colorful high heels. I'll need something to get me from survival-in-winter to elegance-in-Spring.

I'm also trying to get through a book (I normally have no trouble reading through something quickly) not because the book isn't well written but because its painful, profoundly moving, troubled and filled with tension. If you want to read a book that will stir your soul and provoke you, take a look at Mary DeMuth's latest release, Daisy Chain.

There is nothing elegant and breezy about the book. Instead, you might say its about survival and secrets, about what we do to survive, about not wanting to survive when life is too dark and troubled to bear. It's agonizing. And it's a beautiful book in spite of all that agony.

Right now I'm just trying to not always deal with agonizing things, though. There is a time to wrestle through dark and difficult subjects. There's definitely a time to face the fury and the ugliness of certain truths in our past. But there's also a time to dance and sing.

I'm not at that latter point of dancing and singing all the time, yet, but I'd like to be. I'd like to be picking flowers and frolicking in an open field- and looking elegant and feeling as elegant as a woman does when a new day has dawned.