This is Life Is So Beautiful, a weekly email from Hugh Hollowell, devoted to the idea that our hope for survival in this brutal world is rooted in finding the beauty that is everywhere, but sometimes hard to find.

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The world is filled with arbitrary markers to note the passage of time. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Holidays.

And now, Lockdown Week.

It was three years ago this week that my life changed, and everything in my world shut down. The foster son who was living with us at the time went on Spring break and never saw his classroom again. My last meal in a restaurant for 2020 would be a mediocre sandwich in a Subway eaten by myself reading my phone when a colleague had to cancel our meeting at the last minute. Until it began to happen, COVID 19 was barely on my radar. These days, it is my constant companion, the unbidden guest in my daily life. It factors into so much of my decision making.

It made career choices for me. It took family members from me. It cost me friends. It killed some of our dreams.

Three years.

Like many of you, my life is very different than it was three years ago. I'm working in ways unheard of three years ago, doing very different work than I did three years ago, and am worried about very different things than I did three years ago.

This newsletter helped me stay sane during those three years. It was my window into the larger world, a space where I could connect to others who were going through the same thing, but experiencing it differently. And it gave me, as it has for the last eight years, a reason to look for hope.

Knowing that thousands of people will read what you wrote that week is a responsibility I don't take lightly. I get emails literally every week from people who tell me how much they look forward to these letters, who tell me how something I wrote inspired them or gave them hope or helped them through a problem. To be clear, this doesn't happen because I'm great, but because they are. I just show up and do the work.

We are in a partnership, you and I. It is my job to provide the words, and it is on you to provide the meaning. I never know what will connect with people. I will be in rapturous love with a link, and it will go over like a lead balloon. But then something that I least expect will get wings and I will see it shared all over social media. Or I will be having a bad day and feel my intro (this part) is barely readable, and I will get dozens of responses because it connected. Other times I spend days on a piece and its crickets in my inbox.

So, it's the third anniversary of Lockdown Week. The eight anniversary of my launching this newsletter. And still here we are, looking for beauty in unlikely places, trying to find a reason to go on. And like most searches, we tend to find the things we look for.

Thanks for continuing to look with me.

Five Beautiful Things

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The UK illustrator Jess Mason is my new Instagram crush - her aesthetic includes non-sexualized women, cats, books, and nature. I love everything about her work.

And then there is Nicholas Moegly from Ohio, whose moody paintings of the mundane and banal capture something I didn't know I had lost.

​History Maps is very cool - a multi-media approach to creating timelines of historic events with maps, videos, and photos. I also love that the site has very little instruction, leaving it to the user to play in order to learn.

Since the days of Rankin Bass holiday specials, I have been captivated with stop-motion film making. This video is fascinating and must have been tedious to make - the primary element is wood - that is, cross-sectional photographic scans of pieces of hardwood, burls and branches.

And then this poem:

​The Good News

They don’t publish

the good news.

The good news is published

by us.

We have a special edition every moment,

and we need you to read it.

The good news is that you are alive,

and the linden tree is still there,

standing firm in the harsh Winter.

The good news is that you have wonderful eyes

to touch the blue sky.

The good news is that your child is there before you,

and your arms are available:

hugging is possible.

They only print what is wrong.

Look at each of our special editions.

We always offer the things that are not wrong.

We want you to benefit from them

and help protect them.

The dandelion is there by the sidewalk,

smiling its wondrous smile,

singing the song of eternity.

Listen! You have ears that can hear it.

Bow your head.

Listen to it.

Leave behind the world of sorrow

and preoccupation

and get free.

The latest good news

is that you can do it.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

Check this out

On his blog, CJ Chilvers lists some brainless tasks he tackles when he is feeling unproductive. Particularly useful for the day after Daylight Savings goes into effect.

As I said last week, since having COVID, it feels like the words don't come like they did. So I particularly liked this piece by Cory Doctorow about what to do when the writing is hard.

Thank you!

Ideas for links this week came from Allison and Tina Roth Eisenberg, and was made possible by the Classical Focus Playlist on Amazon Music and Sweet and Spicy Black Tea.

It was a rough week last week, and I was swamped with other people's projects all weekend, and my sleep cycle is off because of the time change, so I'm gonna bounce. But I am ridiculously grateful for you, and for your reading and sharing and financial support. As long as you keep reading and sharing, I'm gonna keep writing.

This newsletter remains free and ad-free because of the support of my members, who insist on my making it free for everyone else. Other ways to support this project include buying me a cup of coffee or forwarding it to your friends or even just replying and saying hi.

Take care of yourself. And each other.

Hugh Hollowell Jr

Publisher

​Life Is So Beautiful​