Bleak is Beautiful

This is my favorite tree in my neighborhood.

While its leaves are absolutely stunning in the Fall, I love it this way too.

In it's Bleak, skeletal November form.

I've written before that 'Bleak is Beautiful.' It may have been a full post here, but I think it was just a caption to a similar picture on social media. This theme often comes back around for me in November, a particularly bleak month. My favorite ideas, among Bleak's definitions, are "exposed to the elements" and "charmless." Upon first consideration, these characteristics may not seem so great. But with deeper thought, I think they are actually really beautiful. 

"Exposed to the elements." Nothing to hide. Vulnerable. Open to the winds of change. 

"Charmless." In its most simple form. Without unnecessary adornment, and without the need to impress. 

November skyscapes feel Bleak to me in these ways.

I talk about this with my Dad, nearly every year, it seems. November has a bad reputation for being grey and Bleak, the thrill of Fall fallen away and the jingle of the Holidays yet to arrive. I think for me, it is this very simplicity that makes it so appealing. Brush away the extra, lay it all out.

As I got thinking on my walk right before this about how 'Bleak is Beautiful,' I couldn't help but remember that I also used the word Bleak this week to describe how the world is feeling for me and many people I know, choosing it in this case for its negative qualities - like "inhospitable" and "dreary.” This November's elections have made things feel very Bleak to me, in these ways.

That said, I think I have had enough distance - in this case four days - to have shifted through some of the stages of grief (which I honestly cannot even name, but it's felt like this), and to be starting to consider that there will be Beauty in the Bleakness. A large portion of America laid some shit bare, and now we are at a precipice in which a lot feels vulnerable. In this Bleakness, I suppose we are given opportunities to see where care is needed in the face of vulnerability, and to step up, without the need to impress, to provide it.

At the risk of sounding Pollyanna, I suppose this is the juncture at which I say that like my favorite neighborhood tree, America is Bleak right now. I still love her. And as I move through the stages of grief - of which a quick Google search turned out that the last is Acceptance - as a show of love, I am working toward continued appreciation of vulnerability, and the opportunities it offers us to provide care.

Bleak is Beautiful.