A Poem By Sarah Teasdale-Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell;
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for the Spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Give all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.

I Still Got It.

I went out tonight with my BFF, and I realized that it's been a long, long time since I've put on makeup, dressed up, and gone out. Something I enjoy so much and used to do so regularly has completely disappeared from my life. My job doesn't require too much beautification, and we've been too broke to go out together too much since last year.

He decided to be miserable and go to bed and pout, which was great, as it left LV and I the whole evening to hang out. I sort of fixed my hair and put on makeup for the first time since I went to a funeral a little while back. I put on big-girl shoes, with heels that go clickety-clack, and a shirt that shows off my waist. I had on lipstick. I was hot. I remember.

And the audience responded. We saw some folks who I hadn't seen in a while, and some folks I see all the time, and men approached us and talked and were flattering and kind and flirty and fun. I'd forgotten that I'm interesting for more than my ability to provide and hold down the fort while Mr. Junky gets his shit together. I'm sexy for my own self, inwards and outwards.

And how did I forget this? What brainwashing has made me forget the first thing I learned, from earliest, earliest childhood--that I'm a pretty girl and that people like me? I can make boys and girls smile and laugh. That's fun to do. I'm, like, one of those people, those smiling people I see outside of my car window, surrounded by folks who want to hear what they have to say.

I'm partly thrilled with our little fun night out, and partly horrified that I'd forgotten. What else am I forgetting about who I am? And I'm sad that he wasn't there with me, the man that I love. We used to be together, out charming folks and being attractive. Now he's home nursing a tragically low self-esteem while I'm being reborn into society. It's sad for him.

An Article.

I stumbled this article about the incidence of heroin-related overdoses tonight, and it's been keeping me from sleeping. There's not much to it that is particularly immediately relevant, but all the talk of heroin addicted males in their late twenties or early thirties dying and dying and dying is making my head spin.

I love my heroin addicted male in his late twenties. He's a pain in my ass, but I love him. I want him with me, always. I don't want to lose him to the ground, to the indignities of a young and wasteful death. Reading these statistics gets me all unstitched.

And I don't want that anger, that albatross. I don't want any more unwieldy emotions. I want him, by my side until we're 99 years old. I want children and grandchildren and to laugh with him when he's an old man and I'm an old woman. I want the happiness that seemed to be ripening when we got married, that first flush of love and hope and something so beautiful that it had to be true.

3:00, And Ruminations On Beauty.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I slept today until 3:00.

"Oh my god, it's three o'clock!" I said, and snuggled deeper into the blanket. He was sleeping next to me. I don't know why we were so tired.

I woke up before then because the doggy was doing the pee-pee dance, and then I got back in bed to write about green food, and then I fell asleep again. We went to bed last night at around 10:00.

I slept some kind of deep, weird sleep, like my soul was being filled with sleep. I guess I am very tired...but it felt less like it had to do with my body and more like it had to do with my mind. Last week was crazy, emotional, and, apparently, exhausting.

Today, he sat on the couch and felt sorry for himself. He keeps looking in the mirror and saying that he looks like a monster. I think he looks like Christmas morning. I keep telling him he's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

What I think of his appearance or the state of his heart or his potential to make the world a better place doesn't count. "You love me," he tells me, and discounts anything I have to say.

And it's true, I love him. I love the whole big mess of him, every crook and crevice...but that love isn't completely unfounded.

A few nights ago, he was lying with his head in my lap, lamenting how he has fallen apart and how he is afraid that he's going to take me down with him, how he's good for nothing, how he contributes nothing to our home, to our relationship, to the world. I thought about everything he was saying, and I thought in that new, slow way I'm learning to think in recovery. I keep thinking about the way he feels.

There is some truth to it, that the last few months he hasn't been able to contribute much to our household, and that I've been bearing the brunt of a lot of his mess. But it's not true at all in the essential way he keeps asserting. He is a wonderful, wonderful man, and he makes me feel like the luckiest woman in the world sometimes.

And I've been thinking about what it is that he contributes to the world, outside of our relationship and our household. There are a few things, but the best thing is that he has this amazing ability to make things beautiful. He has a gift of a particular vision, and whenever he sets his mind to it, he can really turn shit to sugar.

And ultimately, I like the way this reflects on me, I think. This attribute of his is important to me, and it's something we share. I sometimes feel guilty that I'm not doing more to make the world a better place. Writing about body art is interesting, but it's not exactly curing A.I.D.S. But then I realize that writing is important, and it's my own way of making the world more beautiful.

So why is beauty so important? And why is beauty so important to me?

Beauty, I guess, gives me that god-feeling...that moment when you recognize something beautiful, when it kind of catches your breath and pulls at your guts, or points at some emptiness in your guts that feels so essential to living...it makes me feel aware of something bigger than myself.

That isn't properly Christian, is it? Or even Buddhist, which is second in line for my religion of choice. It's pagan...beauty induces a kind of spiritual awareness in me. Dionysian.

I'm going to go get in the bed, brush the hair off of my husband's forehead, and gaze at his lovely face.