I’m an author and I’m deeply connected to storytelling online, mostly because it’s almost impossible to exist as an artist without having some kind of presence. Last year, I began to notice beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, videos of peoples lives. Underneath the post, or in the captions, you’d find the hashtag #Romantaciseyourlife.
The principal of the trend was to focus on small moments of joy, or romanticism of daily life. From your daily coffee to the length of the journey you are on, romanticising life follows a simple practice; find joy and walk a path of beauty. A good example of this in practice is getting a bath. You could simply get a bath or you could put the candles on, decorate the water with petals, and have the reverb of jazz playing from another room.
There are welcome criticisms of the trend, suggesting that in truth, it’s an effort to sell more to us, or or to excuse our own need to buy more. Certainly, it’s not always easy to afford ‘nice’ things. But I would argue that perhaps this practice is more about how you position the current things you do have and exactly what the viewpoint is. There is no shame in wanting the ‘nice’ things, but painting a romantic view becomes harder to sustain if your reality never matches up.
Romanticism is not new. Romanticism has appeared throughout history as a crux from artists to position their work from. This viewpoint then, certainly bled into the zeitgeist. Romanticism in art was a movement that originated in the 19th century, lending mostly from Europe and into the western world. Romanticism was a reaction to industrialisation and focused on the beauty of the everyday; awe, aesthetics and sublimity.
This carried through painting, literature and overall lifestyle. It culminated in an overall enlightenment.
Examples I have studied in literature include William Blake. His writing is revered and studied for all of its complexities but also focuses primarily on returning to nature, finding creativity and joy in the contrast to the smog of a city. Ultimately, romanticism for the human condition meant going back to the simple things to find joy and hold space for playful discovery.
You can find some incredible examples of romanticism in many artists’ work. This bleeds over into every aspect of their lifestyle. A great example that is significant for me is Lana Del Rey. On social media, many people were surprised to learn that her debut album cover, for Born to Die, was not shot in some delicate LA suburb but instead, at a bungalow in Watford. As her art principally focuses on Americana, it feels like a stark contrast. This proves that it is not exactly where you are, but how you choose to perceive it. We can learn from this in our own lives to find focus and simplistic beauty.
When I was thinking at length about this I tried to think of examples in my own life and I came back to my own mothers house. I grew up on a council estate just outside of Leeds. The garden was overrun with weeds, we lived just off a main road with buses and fumes curling through it, strange pot holes in the street and rubbish cluttered up the sides of the path. And yet, my mother had an unwavering sense of pride about her home and a specific appreciation or aesthetics. She might not have had a lot of money, but her ornaments, her fashion, the smaller details we are all curated based on personal taste. The inside of her home was overflowing with books about beautiful things, music flowed through it.
There was a constant unsettling and contrasting feeling that neighbors were never happy with this. The criticism was ‘she thinks she’s better than us’ when this was not always entirely true, she had just wanted things to feel better for herself. She was proud of the neighborhood she lived in, but she also knew that nuance existed and you could decorate a council house with cultivated details.
From here, I really started to think about how I could engage with this in my world. As a writer, I still find myself meandering through experiences in life. Particularly when it comes to work. I always felt that I was squeezing my practice in between the off hours, rubbing my eyes over coffee and blue light.
Instead, I thought about how I could romanticise my practice. I bought myself a writing desk fro the first time and the rest was decoration. Fine china from a charity shop, tucking my shirt in, slicking my hair back. Holding space in conversations for small epiphanies. Viewing myself as an author for the first time, not a disgruntled artist squeezing everything in. I decided I was at the start of a journey and that it could take me a while to find the right path, but each notebook and page read could signal the twist in the path to find something simple and beautiful. I tried to stop breathing more, and reach my hands out. Smell the roses metaphorically and physically. The truth of the experiment is – it worked.
I felt, for the first time, I was viewing the small details of my life, placing ornaments with intention, seeing any organised mess as a reflection of my creativity. Using notebooks because it felt more magical, slow sipping a morning coffee and smiling on the walk to get it. I felt myself move in tune with the universe and I was surprised to feel it actually content. The practice of romanticising helps you see everything in a more positive way, and it refrains from toxicity.
There was, to put it simply, more joy in life. I’d recommend it to anyone who hopes to find some. Next time you’re searching, focus your efforts on finding peace with where you are. What small details can you build into your routine to find your inner romantic? Don’t pour the coffee and gulp, smell the morning and run the spoon around the rim. Find a way to take a breath in it, take it slow and discover the questions that arise. Because I guarantee you will find more of them. For life is full of small beauties. Be a romantic at heart and wear it with pride. Or as Blake put it;
‘To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.’