Lakeshore Drive looking west, March 21, 2026

There is a really cool survey online that you can take for free (you just need to create an account, which is worth it as I’ll explain below) called the Values in Action (VIA) survey, which asks questions which tap into 24 character strengths, and then ranks them from strongest on down based on your responses. We had to do the survey at the start of my coaching training last summer, and in going to the website I realized I did in fact have an account and I had taken the survey once before, back in 2017. This is where it got fun for me- for my lists almost completely flipped between these two time points. It makes sense. In 2017 I was in a bit of a crazy period- my kids were 6 and 4 years old, I was working full time, I was competing in highland dance, and I was a Girl Scout leader. I was controlling the heck out of my life.

Receiving Appreciation of Beauty as my top strength gave me all the warm fuzzies. Seeing Self-Regulation as my 2017 top strength made me want to reach back in time and give that girl a hug. She was just doing so much back then and I can just feel that pressure while reading the self-regulation definition. I wish I was there to tell her that she didn’t need to do so much.

I DO look for and appreciate beauty everywhere I go. The colors of radishes and rainbow carrots, the venation patterns of leaves, seeds hidden inside fruit (looking at you, pomegranate!). I savor the ripples of ducks crossing the river. When I see our living room fill with orange evening light, I run to the window.

Even in the city, there is beauty everywhere, in the flowers and in the squirrels and the pigeons. The smell of lilacs reaches out to us in the spring as we walk on city sidewalks. Though as I have said here a million times, our view from our apartment has SO few natural resources, with the main one being the Chicago River. But even that will be gone soon as they are building a couple new high rise buildings that will block that. Gosh how I would love some more trees.

A few weeks ago I felt compelled to go to Sandmeyers bookstore here in Printer’s Row. There was a book that I’ve been wanting to get (How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee- and I STILL want it). But as I stood there in the essay collections section, another book caught my eye- Upstream by Mary Oliver. I reached for the book to read the back cover, and as soon as I had it in my hands I felt a rush of warmth, a literal magic that flowed through my chest. I have never experienced anything like it. Even going into Sandmeyers- I always know what I will buy. I have not impulsively bought a book in years and years. But here I was with this book in my hand and I didn’t know what to do. So I set it back on the bookcase, and I felt that pull again, to pick it back up. The book literally spoke to me, and so what choice did I have? I got it, and spent the next week letting Mary Oliver walk me through the woods and the beachfront of Provincetown. She wrote about finding an injured gull and caring for it, and at the end of the essay I sobbed.

I think of the act of writing and being creative as diving deep into to my soul. Finding moments of awe and beauty tap into this same depth. I feel it right in my heart center. I feel whole.

Here is some of the beauty I have captured recently-

Beauty

Hot Air Balloons