Beautiful Things

I nearly bought a flat in Tunbridge Wells once. For some reason I didn’t and ended up with a house in Portsmouth. If I had, though, I might have been a neighbour of Clare, who writes the blog Three Beautiful Things.

3BT (as she calls it) has a simple premise. Each day she writes down three beautiful things that have happened to her, or that she has witnessed that day – just a few sentences about each – not the long, rambling monologues I write. She writes nicely and succinctly and gives the impression of a life that is comfortable and cosy and sprinkled with happy moments. Of course, her life may be nothing like that – we only get to see the three highlights of each day and none of the low spots.

She also gives the impression of carrying out some kind of exercise her therapist set her (not that she has one, that I am aware of). I can almost hear him or her saying to Clare, ‘Now I want you to focus on the good things in your life and, every day, write down for me three beautiful things that happen to you.’

And it’s not such a bad idea at that. I have often observed that it is these small and precious moments in one’s day that make one happy – a butcher bird practicing its song outside the window in the morning, that beautiful lemon-coloured orchid suddenly in bloom and perfectly framed by the tree it is growing on, Wifie lighting up at finding a bright, shiny new dollar coin in her change... I have always tried to notice and savour such moments. Some are more special than others (like the day I was sitting on a little bridge in the North of Scotland, watching a river slide past, when a dapper little weasel crossed the bridge from one end to the other without even seeming to notice I was there) but the lesser ones are there in every single day.

Maybe it takes a quiet, contemplative nature even to be aware of all these beautiful things going on. It strikes me that if one is running around looking for excitement, or entertainment, or even achievement, one would miss most of them. In which case, I’m blessed – and so is Clare.