The world is beautiful

 

“The world is beautiful, just look around you”. His voice, though full of encouragement holds a hint of frustration just under the surface. “ Why not come out and sit a while” she had been  been sad for some time now.

She  allows herself to step outside into the velvet warm sunshine of a late summer’s afternoon abandoning attempts to  explain the blinding  gloom of the sadness in which she is wrapped tight. A sadness, which turns her eyes inwards and away from the  world beyond the door.

They sit together, he wrapped up in a fleece for although the sun is shining, the wind is keen and sitting in the shade of the house he feels chilled. He talks to her about the bamboo which last year they  both thought was dying  but this year  has sent out nine new shoots, and she listens with only half an ear as her  mind takes her on a journey through her  unhappiness. He talks about his beloved trees that like miniature forests inhabit their yard and she  remembers the wood where they  used to walk before they came here.

 He points out the tortoiseshell  butterfly that floats like tissue paper over the buddleia before choosing instead  to land on the large pompom flowered  hydrangea,  and despite herself,  she allows her  eyes to follow it as it feeds on the sugary liquid hidden within.

He offers  her a rose, picked from the climber by the back door and she inhales  the exotic perfume of Turkish delight and musk and her nose is dusted with the yellow pollen from its stigma making her sneeze and  then sneeze again.

 She  remembers the roses from her childhood with petals that were picked to make perfume and the rose hip itches of Autumn walks to school. She  remembers the  lazy green  lawns filled with  buttercups and making  daisy chain crowns  and dandelions that wept milk and she finds herself smiling despite her need to be sad.

He wanders in to make tea and her eyes follow him  as he goes wishing she had the words to  explain her sadness to him as she knows in her unhappiness, he is made unhappy too.

How does she  explain what she  barely understands herself? Why the early morning mist that promises sunshine later feels too precious to sleep through? or the  psychedelic prism of the  rainbow arcing across the gunmetal  sky is a promise of sunshine somewhere? Or that the falling leaves of Autumn give life to the earth below?

That because the bamboo defies death and the butterfly knowing its life is short is undeterred in its flight, the  world feels  too  beautiful  for her to see without sadness?

And yet, when she allows herself to look through his eyes, she can sometimes see the beauty without any tears and feel her sadness lift. But not today, despite the beautiful sunshine her sadness like a dark raincloud still covers everything.