Hi.

Welcome to
Transactions with Beauty.
Thanks for being here.
I hope that this is a space that inspires you to add something beautiful to the world. I truly believe that 
you are required to make something beautiful.

– Shawna

 

 

I Loved

I Loved

Let’s start with this bittersweet, poetic, playful video of a song from Leonard Cohen’s posthumous album. The lyrics begin:

I loved your face, I loved your hair
Your T-shirts and your eveningwear
As for the world, the job, the war
I ditched them all to love you more

There is nothing more important than to give voice to what you love. I suppose it’s one of the sub-themes of this blog, the question: What do you love?

In one of the first posts I ever wrote on TwB, I asked the question in the context of writers’ manifestos.

In the Cohen song, the line is in the past tense: I loved. Which he wrote at the end of his life. but how about this, let’s not waste time, let’s write, I love…….in the present tense. What is it that you love about those you love? What do you love in this life? How can you have more of what you love every day?

One thing I love is Leonard Cohen. The way that he knew the way the world was, and could find beauty in it, too.

a rose by shawna lemay
 

His song, Everybody Knows, only becomes more and more powerful. That’s art. That’s what art can do. That’s what love can do, too. So here’s to art, and here’s to love, and here’s to dear L. Cohen getting down on his knees to sing to those of us who need it most, the damaged souls, the open hearts, to those who move through the world to the tune of the broken hallelujah.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Yes the Twentieth Century, Yes the Dictionary of Angels

Yes the Twentieth Century, Yes the Dictionary of Angels

Happy Thoughts, Darling

Happy Thoughts, Darling