Last week I was on vacation in Los Angeles for Thanksgiving. LA is where I am from. It has made me who I am, for better and for worse. It is a difficult place for me to return. Los Angeles is where a lived a confusing childhood with a psychologically abusive father, who stalked me throughout my teen years and adulthood and it is where I struggled for years with depression and anxiety.
As in Bessel van der Kolk’s remarkable book, “The Body Keeps the Score”, returning to Los Angeles makes my body and mind think that is it not safe, that it is not in control. I do as much as I can to counter this. I exercise and pray but some of it is true, while I am there, my time and space and boundaries are not my own---and that wreaks havoc on my body, mind and spirit.
One practice that seems to help is to look for and document beauty. If you follow me on social media, you’d think I was having a wonderful time (and in many cases I was) as I shared photos from outings and visits. Looking for and sharing beauty kept me focused during the trip. It kept me from getting too overwhelmed with anxiety.
Like how I found this mid-century modern apartment building on a morning run.
Or these gorgeous pincushion cactus on a walk through the Huntington Gardens.
Or how I was able to show my sons where their daddy and I were married nearly 20 years ago at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
This is reality. The rest is just distraction.
I didn’t show you the distractions. There were streets I hoped my husband would not turn onto. And sometimes old hurtful memories surfaced just as we turned a corner. How the ghosts of people I want to forget haunted me. I gained 6 pounds in the past two weeks and my stomach as been so upset, you’d think I had an ulcer.
But then I remember; I do not want to live like I did. I breathe. I run. I pray. I look for beauty.
This practice of looking for beauty in all of life sustains me when life gets hard. It sustained me during the pandemic. It sustained me as a child. Looking for beauty gave me hope that there was a different life outside my house. For aren’t those moments of beauty, the moments where you felt most alive or loved or connected to the people around you, isn’t that really when God shines through for a moment?
Each time I return is a little easier. I don’t know if it will always be difficult but I know the load is lighter each time.
In Dostoevsky’s novel, The Idiot, Prince Lev Nikolyaevich says, “I believe the world will be saved by beauty.” I believe I will be saved by beauty—-and that’s a start.
We may not be indigenious to any particular place but we can be indigenous to the pain that we experienced in any landscape.
I am commenting on a typo not to be nit- picky but only just in case your readers search for the title. The book on trauma you referenced is actually called "The Body Keeps the Score."