Beauty is everywhere.

There is beauty in the trees, their colors, the way the palm trees gently rock side to side even with the harshest of winds. There is beauty in the unmade bed, the sheets all twisted and lopsided and the pillows scattered across the floor. See that delicate little white feather? It’s from the comforter that you’ve kicked away in the night from the heat and the REM and the dreams of pirate ships on Jupiter led by old boyfriends you used to wish would come back. See how the ceiling fan tousles it around on the floor? If only we could feel so delicate…

There is beauty in the mess, in the traffic at 4pm on Santa Monica Blvd heading east towards the 405. A chance to call a friend, a moment to sit in your favorite music, a 30-minute stretch of NPR goodness that makes you feel like your brain is still functioning. Sitting with someone in the driver’s seat or passenger’s seat or backseat and because you’re literally stopped, being able to hold a glance on them and see their eyes smiling back. And you notice, how wonderful this is, they are, life can be.

There is beauty in the “asshole” who cut you off on the boulevard, beauty in the fact that in that moment you are presented with a choice: add to the anger of this world or fight it by laughing at the absurdity. Egg them on or let it go. Will this moment matter two days from now? Probably not. We get to choose to act accordingly and add what the world needs, not the pinched nerve.

There is beauty in the sweat that leaks onto the yoga mat and gym floor and trail run, the realization that we are all just creatures trying to survive in this world and doing the best we can…whatever that means for each of us.

There is beauty in the tears and the numbness and the eyes that reflect the hours of sleep that can never be enough. A beauty so deep lies in silence, that I just cannot write words to do it justice. The energetic swirl in the air, the tiny windstorm of magic, the heart you can hear, the small breaths that fill the space. Listen to that quiet electricity. Can you feel it?

Touch is beauty and touch is love gifted. A hug from a friend, a high five from a stranger, a hand on your shoulder when you cry, a kiss you can’t control, a foot that skims yours under the table and doesn’t dart away. A dog that finds the crook in your legs where your thighs meet your shins and nestles in. Each hand you shake, we’re really just handing someone an invisible note with the words scribbled on it, “I care.”

There is beauty in the most painful moments, in the call to say it’s over, in the word that someone’s passed, in the watching the people you love in pain and there’s nothing you can do about it. In the unanswered phone calls and the kid you see waiting at the bus stop alone, drowning under his backpack of science books and torment.

And when we feel it the hardest, and don’t hear what we want to, or are let down or disappointed or hopeful even when everyone tells us not to be, we MUST REMIND OURSELVES that we are creatures of beauty and love, and to deny ourselves of living that existence is the biggest sin we could ever commit. Finding beauty in pain and love in indifference or both in the dark fear of things is how we were designed to walk this earth.

I was teaching a class this Friday morning in Westwood, whose cycle room is a glass egg high above Wilshire Blvd. And it was the last part of class and I was realizing that for the first time all week, I was feeling present again. Alive. And I looked in front of me and there it was, a plastic bag floating high above the street, three stories up, just languidly painting the sky. And that scene from American Beauty, that scene I love so much and wish I could have spoken myself, here it was in front of me.

“There is this entire life behind things. And a benevolent force that wants me to know that there is no reason to be afraid. Ever. Sometimes there is so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it. And my heart is just going to cave in.”