Welcome to The Beautiful Anyway Dispatch

Setting the context and celebrating the start

In the fall of 2020 I quit working outside the home and became a full time stay-at-home-mom to our 7 month old daughter. It was a hard and lonely transition. Yet, it was also fruitful and (with hindsight) brought me to the person I am today. Seeking a connection to my “pre-mom self” and the outside world, I came home to my creative self¹.

I quickly launched an Etsy, created products I was proud of, and felt the need to prove the worth of my time away from my daughter. That journey made sense at the time - coming from the paid working world and having a consistent napper, I had the time and socialization to play into capitalism.

Now though, I am trying to detangle myself from the tendency to commodify every moment of my creativity. I want to slow down, to notice the beauty and humor of the current season; to befriend the neighborhood bunny and understand how the plants in our yard transition with each change of weather. I want to be present to the beings and moments in front of me, processing them deeply enough to remember and celebrate.

And because I am a writer and a connector, it feels natural to share some of these moments. Enter The Beautiful Anyway Dispatch. It can be easy to pass by beauty: to be moving too quickly to notice it, to (rightfully) focus on the pain and violence in the world, to not have given ourselves permission to revel in our own curiosity. This space is an invitation to notice the beauty anyway. I hope this allows us to stay grounded in loveliness among the chaos of our lives.

It is named partially in honor of my favorite Judah & The Lion Song which celebrates that even through the struggles, life can be beautiful anyway. This has become a bit of mantra for me in my mothering and art practice. The day might be full of meltdowns, I might be “done” by bedtime, and that snuggle at the end of the night is beautiful anyway. The artwork may not come out the way I planned, and I enjoyed the process and it is beautiful anyway. There certainly are violence and hate running rampant all over the world, and there are people creating beauty in the midst of despair.

It will be a dispatch in that it will be published when inspiration strikes, when beauty emergencies happen and have to be shared! To allow myself to follow the creative winds and stay present to the current moment, I have no schedule and make no promises of cadence.

You can expect dispatches about: creatures I found with my children, new art experiments, poetry drafts, creative work of my friends, any and all moments in nature, ridiculous and funny moments with my children, and much more! I hope this can become a true community, where we can all share the beauty we are finding along the way.

One last bit of context: the logo contains a hammered flower with line work, a marigold. It is not perfect and it is beautiful anyway. Marigolds hold a special place in my heart. They were a key being on a very important trip, their distinct scent brings up the memories. They are a stronghold in our garden, showing resilience; and my children often pop the blooms off as a gift for me. Finally, they represent a connection to our ancestors and the divine feminine, beings that keep my grounded as I move about my day.

Grateful to have you on the journey! How will you stay curious for beauty today?

1. More about this story later! I wrote about it in Motherlore Magazine (Issue 2: Roots) if you want to read about it now.