from trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things
Taki was beautiful.
I use the word beautiful in the sense of the old Latin phrase ESSE QUAM VIDERII, to be is more important than to appear, the essence is more important than the video.
The essence of her was more beautiful than the video of her.
The inside of her was more beautiful than the outside of her.
Don’t get me wrong.
She was beautiful on the outside, too.
Her brown eyes were the color of the plowed ground.
Her dark hair was the color of a moonless, starless night.
Her skin was the color of the bark on the ancient trees below Point Hope.
But oh how beautiful she was on the inside.
Her heart beat slowly and steadily in the arctic cold around her.
Her mind thought deeply and widely of ways she could help the world.
Her soul was undeterred by the frozen, rocky land around the Chukchi Sea.
Yes, she was beautiful.
Yes, she was beauty.
At her still point.
In her essence.
Her family's house was made of yellow painted wooden slats with a red tin roof.
A small chimney rose slightly through the center of its ridge.
It sat on the edge of the pack ice beside the Chukchi Sea.
There were four windows, one for each side of the house.
She sat by the fire in the front room, warming herself against the cold.
She looked out over the sea.
The moon reflected off its surface.
Broken ice moved slowly with the tide.
Whales sang to each other in the deep reaches of the water.
She sighed at the beauty of it all.
She stared at the horizon.
She was silent.
She listened.
She heard a whistle from the sea.
It was the song of a bowhead whale.
“Listen,” sang the mysterious whale.
“Listen with the ears of your heart.”
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