welcome to the beauty club
april zine of the month
Two stories about beauty:
I turned nineteen and used most of I’d earned in year of waitressing for a two-week solo trip to Scotland.
“Are you sure you want to go alone?” my dad asked.
I was sure.
“I went on a solo trip when I was about your age,” he told me. It was a biking trip; he brought his bike across the ocean to Germany and cycled for three weeks. “Whenever I saw something beautiful, I really wished I had someone to share it with.”
I was nineteen and sure, though, and so I went alone to the lochs north of Glasgow, to the Orkneys, to the rolling hills of Edinburgh. Everything green and gray, everything alive with history, everything beautiful. And it was terribly lonely, although I didn’t have words for it then.
When I was a kid, my mom & I formed the "Beauty Club." To be a member, you had to promise to point out any beautiful things you saw to whoever you were with. That's it! Why did I forget this lesson when I was nineteen? Well, I was nineteen.
But I’ve come back to the Club, and I've inducted many others over the years, as has my mom.
Consider this month’s zine your invitation, your "Beauty Club Starter Pack."
Find the beautiful things listed inside & share them with someone, either in person or via photo. Add some beautiful noticings of your own on the blank lines. Tell me how it goes, if you like.
And keep inviting new members into the club; there's room for us all.
Plus, here’s something beautiful I saw on my lunch walk this week:
yours,
portia
Love the concept of the "Beauty Club," Portia. Thanks for sharing these memories and the downloadable zine.