It is enough

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.

– Toni Morrison

This is one of those quotations I’m still wrestling with. I get the first part, intuitively. You don’t need to document it for it to change you. But the last declaration, that you don’t even have to remember it, implies that it is enough to experience the beauty of the world in the moment, and only in the moment. That we are changed by that moment in a way that persists after the memory fades?

On my recent road trip, I had a lot of time to think about this idea. I was driving through stunning landscapes—the physical manifestation of “the world’s beauty”—and trying to take pictures, lamenting not being able to stop to really experience the mountains, or the desert, or the ocean, or the redwoods.

I did take pictures of course, and I do remember some of those places. They were amazing. And, too, I experienced the world’s beauty in the friendships I rekindled on this trip, in the family I reconnected with.

And yeah, I think I was changed by these events, these people, these sights. Even if I don’t remember them, I know that it was good. I know that people I love are out there, and love me. I know it is possible to be loved that way.

So I guess she’s right?

It feels ridiculous to doubt the wisdom of someone like Toni Morrison, but I think you need to experience the world’s beauty, to recognize it is beautiful, before you can believe it exists, even if you don’t remember it.