Advent Calendar of Beauty, Dec 4
Beauty during wartime
Dear Beauty Hunters,
If you feel a bit down-and-out about the state of the world, please read this exquisite beauty-bomb, brought to my attention by my friend Marianne.
The Glow of a Wedding Amid Bombs and Blackouts
This New York Times opinion piece is written by Alyona Synenko, a Ukranian living in Nairobi, who makes her dangerous way to Odesa for her cousin’s wedding. All this while bombs drop and air raids siren.
Here’s an excerpt:
“But today I hoped that the glamour of dressing up and holding flowers would challenge the emptiness of war. I wanted to claim the right to something unnecessary and pretty at a time when electrical blackouts were about to start. Beauty brings joy. And living amid violence, when it is easy to forget that joy exists, beauty becomes a lifeline to normality.”
And:
In the end, six family members witnessed the vows. The wedding was proof that my cousin and her fiancé believed the future was worth thinking about, and their hope was contagious. I wanted a day of beauty for not only the two of them and for those of us who were present, but also for the people we loved who were not there. By dressing up and celebrating we refused to let violence control every aspect of our lives.
Life, and beauty is always throbbing away, with or without us. I don’t know that I’d be this brave and committed to beauty if I was living in the middle of a war, but this story invites me to live with more fullness and go-for-it-ism in peace(ish?)times, with beauty as my co-pilot, even beauty of the high-heels/sore feet/suffer-for-beauty/ vanity kind.
How can you dress up for 2023 in a way that lets everyone know (including you) that the future is worth thinking about?
💜💜💜