Beauty Walk

The first assignment for our Community Studies class was to read an essay by Carol Lee Sanchez, "Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral," and then take a mindful walk through our neighborhood.  We were to describe where we walked and one thing that surprised or delighted us.

Carol Lee Sanchez is an artist and poet who believes that Euro-Americans waste resources and destroy the environment "because they are not spiritually connected to this land-base, because they have no ancient mythos or legendary origins rooted to this land . . ."  She attempts to articulate the "concept of 'relationship' or relatedness and the idea of the sacred in our lives, from a Native American-American Indian perspective and to suggest some ways of embracing a Tribal way of thinking."  Sanchez posits that there is nothing in this world that can be called unnatural or separated from Nature: "Indians say that to live a good life is to walk in Beauty."

Below is an excerpt from my own 'beauty walk."

I am surprised by the first hints of fall—the tinge of yellow on the edges of leaves, the delightful coolness of the morning, the beginning diminuendo of chirps and buzzes, croaks and flutters.  When I left five days ago, it was late August in North Carolina—temperatures in the upper 90s, sun-scorched yards, and humidity that only the mosquitoes could enjoy.  But sometime during my absence, a seasonal shift began, and now the morning is filled with the clearly discernible whisperings of autumn . . .

Many of the houses here, including my own, are “mill houses” constructed for the workers and their families, who had to pay rent to the mill owners for the privilege of living in these small wooden structures, built low to the ground.  Many of them still have their original tin roofs; almost all of them have additions that have been constructed over the last 75 years or so to accommodate our ever-expanding lifestyles and the advent of indoor plumbing.

I walk past the one remaining mill building in town, which since the mid-1970s has been a shopping mall with clothing boutiques, a hair salon, jewelry store, restaurants.  The red-brick structure with rough-hewn hardwood floors sits at the center of town, and next to it is our beloved food co-op, whose yard serves as the unofficial town commons—a gathering place for shared meals and music and seemingly endless streams of conversation . . .

I turn to the right, onto a side street that leads me to the elementary school where my daughter recently began her career as a kindergartener, just across from the tiny house that served as her pre-school.  Our community has a rapidly growing Hispanic population, and my daughter is in a dual-language program, spending half of her day learning in Spanish and the other half in English . . .

I'm reminded of the Native Americans who must have lived here, probably close to the creek that runs a few blocks behind our house.  And I wonder if they enjoyed the first promises of autumn as much as I do.  As I return to my house, I begin thinking about the words of Rumi, "Let the beauty that we love be the beauty that we do."