Holding Beauty, Holding Sorrow

Sally Somerton
Jul 31
2 min read

When did we decide that feeling deeply was something to apologise for?

That to carry the weight of the world somehow meant we were weak, dramatic or unable to cope?

Perhaps the opposite is true.

Perhaps those who notice the cracks, who remember the names, who cannot simply scroll past another tragedy, are not broken at all. Perhaps they are simply awake.

Awake to the quiet grief that accompanies a life fully lived. Awake to the accumulated losses we gather as we grow older. Friends. Parents. Dreams. Certainties. Innocence. The versions of ourselves we had to leave behind to become who we are now.

Yet to be awake is also to notice what so many hurry past.

The first swallow returning in spring.

The scent of rain on warm earth.

The tide breathing against the shore.

The silver trail of a snail across a stone.

A dog's trusting eyes.

A child's unrestrained laughter.

The moon rising over a sleeping landscape.

Beauty is everywhere for those willing to pause long enough to receive it.

And perhaps that is why the sorrow cuts so deeply.

When you have witnessed such extraordinary tenderness in the world, it becomes impossible to understand why we are equally capable of such extraordinary cruelty.

How can the same hands plant forests and wage wars?

Compose music and manufacture weapons?

Hold a newborn with infinite gentleness, yet inflict unimaginable suffering upon another human being?

Must we really pretend none of it touches us?

Somewhere along the way we confused spirituality with emotional perfection. As though an open heart should never ache. As though love leaves no room for anger. As though courage arrives without fear walking beside it.

Yet fear has always had a purpose. It reminds us that life matters. That people matter. That beauty deserves protecting. That love is precious because it can be lost.

I no longer aspire to be endlessly positive.

I'd rather be honest.

To admit there are days when my heart is filled with birdsong and brokenness in equal measure. Days when sunlight dances across leaves while headlines speak of devastation. Days when the sea calms my soul even as families elsewhere are torn apart by forces beyond their control.

None of these truths cancels out another.

The world has always been a place of astonishing beauty and unbearable sorrow.

Perhaps wisdom is not found in choosing which one to see.

Perhaps it is found in having the courage to witness both, allowing each to deepen the other, and still waking each morning willing to love this remarkable, heartbreaking world.

Sally x

Sally Somerton - Island Writer