Meet Marianne Lile. Friend since sixth grade, author, engaged citizen, thinker, creative, domestic artist, wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, family member, and autumn-lover—not in that order, of course! A fall season doesn’t go by when I don’t revisit the days Marianne and I used to skip high school French (or humanities, or math, or one of the many classes we took together from junior high through high school), hightail it down to a local beach (Meyedenbauer comes to mind), sit in some swings, stare long and hard at the lake collecting ripples in the quiet bay, the Olympics in the distance, the maple trees turning orange and red, some of them collecting at our feet. This activity came to be known as “relating to fall.” We gave it deep meaning, resonance. It was beautiful. We were, too.
Marianne is a Seattle author who most recently contributed to the excellent Art in the Times of Unbearable Crisis, a collection of essays by women about making art in the midst of a pandemic, war and other chaotic events.
Marianne’s essay, “Be Beauty” is an idea she discovered during the Salon for Beauty Hunters last winter, and I want everyone to hear about beauty-as-a-verb firsthand from her. I have this image, one Marianne shared with the group, of her standing at her front door, watching the neighborhood kids walk to school, and Marianne yelling out to them, “Be beauty!” How’s that for a directive?? As a kid I would have much preferred to hear “be beauty” than the killjoys of “be good” or “learn lots.”
As we do in these Beauty Q&As, we set a timer for 10 minutes, and let ‘er rip (backed by the percussive of the hammering electricians). Here are some highlights:
Beauty as Life and Living, that electrical current you don’t always see but know is there.
How important it is to feel Beauty as a verb—as a way to wake up in the morning and set out into the day being as kind, empathetic and gentle as possible.
Beauty as a slowing down—the electrical current in slow-mo.
As always, we end with one good reason to be alive today. Marianne’s involves blue mascara and conversations with strangers.
Hit play, on the video at the top of the page.
Marianne Lile is an author who lives in Seattle, WA. Most recently she contributed to the essay collection Art in the Times of Unbearable Crisis, and is the author of Stepmother: A Memoir (both from She Writes Press). If you hear someone calling out “Be Beauty” as you go by, it just might be Marianne.
Beauty Hunter is a space where we examine the whole bag of life through the lens of beauty—going so far as to imagine Beauty as the Purpose of Life.
In Fall 2022, the Salon is back, and we’re going to put our attention on Humor, Play & Fun. Imagine if that sweet trinity made it to the top of your goals list? Well, we might rip up all goals lists and find another way into that child-like, wise space of glee and light.
We gather in my Zoom room on Fridays, starting October 7, 12 - 1 pm Pacific USA time, and go until the first Friday of December.
The Salon is a gathering of curious-minded people who want to talk about the larger issues of life from an exploratory POV. ←If you’re interested, more information at the link above, or email me at: tatyana @ everydaycreative (dot) net.
More deets at Join a Salon!, at Everyday Creative. XOXO
Beauty Q&A With Marianne Lile