“That’s so beautiful.”

She walked in nervously and approached the counter and said, “My son is getting married. I hate bra shopping. I need a bra.” To top off that introduction she added, “…and my sister says I need Spanx.” By the time we were in the dressing room, I learned that she was no longer married to the father and that he was re-married and she wasn’t. It was only the beginning of the story, I was sure. She was nervous, and had come in for help. “This is what I do,” I remember thinking. And so I went to work.

There was a lot of fear and anxiety in that dressing room until the bras started fitting and she could see the effect of the shapewear smoothing her out. She said she couldn’t believe it. I told her to look in the mirror, to raise her arms, shrug her shoulders side to side, sit down, stand up, put on her shirt, look in the mirror again, reach down to grab her purse, take her shirt off, and look in the mirror again. Despite all of this real stuff going on, she repeated that she could not believe it.

I gathered the bras and other foundations pieces that she had tried on that did not work, did not fit, and were not right. They were a mess scattered around the dressing room. As I picked them up one by one, the room became more tidy and manageable. She wanted to try things on again. The ones that worked, that fit, that felt right. I left her alone with her good choices.

She opened the door to show me one bra in particular that she had not wanted to try on in the first place and was now re-visiting. When I had initially showed it to her on the hanger she had said, “That’s so beautiful, but it’s too pretty.” After some urging she tried it on anyway and now here she was trying it on again. She looked confident. She looked proud. She was the beautiful mother of the groom. She looked happy.

“That’s so beautiful,” I couldn’t help saying.

“It really is,” she said.

It wasn’t just the bra. It was her. It was her story. It was beautiful.

These complicated lives of ours. These layers.

“That’s so beautiful.” Say it whenever you can. Know that it’s true.

Much love. Much beauty. Much truth.

– Joy

Ode on a Grecian Urn

by John Keats

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”