Taylor Budesky

San•guine

adjective

1. Optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation.

Me? An Optimist?! Shut up!

Before this year, hell maybe before today, I don’t think I ever would have used that word to describe myself.

I hadn’t even turned sixteen, the sweetest of ages, and I had already gathered the information I needed to form my pessimistic conclusions about life. I had cold, hard proof that the world sucked. Like, what was the point of it all? Good people like my family got shit on over and over and over again and the world was (and is) dying and nobody seems to care. Not just about the state of our planet and its climate, but about anything! All that matters is themselves, popularity, money, connections, and so on. I became a glass half empty, a defensive driver because no way is someone else not going to make a mistake, and a make sure we have a plan, a color coded schedule, also a back up plan and a back up plan for the back up plan for when it all inevitably goes to shit, kind of gal. Humanity, at its core, to me, was trash.

Pretty rough, for a girl who was only thirteen, huh?

I couldn’t tell you when that changed, or when I discovered that I’d been lying to myself - I wasn’t just an optimist I was the optimist. I just had to really pull up the weeds from their roots and brush off the mud to see it. That realization was painfully slow, two steps forward one back, but also suddenly, all at once.

So, I have the thought: Good people get shit on. Over and over and over again.

And then, somehow, somewhere along the long and winding road of my life so far, I have the thought: god, they just keep getting back up with a smile though and I want to know how.

Is it merely just optimism? Hope for that things will get better, eventually? Is it simply trying to leave any space better than they found it? Like they’re just treating humans like a beloved National Park? Picking up other’s trash and keeping their voice down for the enjoyment and peace and respect for the space they’re in?

I began to realize these good people are good largely because they create good things for others despite the bad happening to them. They aren’t focused on their situation, they’re focused on creating spaces of positivity. They compliment strangers, they pay for the coffee behind them in line, they wake up over and over again in a hopeless world with hope.

Does it really just boil down to the golden rule? Treat others how you wish to be treated. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Make love, not war - you get it.

I wanted to be them and I also wanted to kiss them. I was desperate to shake their shoulders and ask how they do it yet somehow was slowly beginning to feel the need to look over my shoulder when someone asked me the same question. What do you mean? Me? Don’t ask me! I’m a pessimist! Look at my next thought!

The world is dying. What’s the point?

Right, correct, totally fair ma’am.

Then my brain began to start to say, every day: but there’s people who are really, truly trying to change it before it’s too late. Look at this research! Look at this organization! Okay, yes, the straws - BUT big change happens with lots of small change! And I guess I’ve decided that while they, we, try, I’d rather die knowing I enjoyed as much as I can while I can.

Enjoy how humans smile on the first sunny day of spring and we moan when we eat pasta and bread. We laugh so hard we cry and snort because the happiness has to escape our body somehow or we’ll break. We say “oh, biig stretch” to any dog we see doing so and we make movies and art and take pictures of the moon and stars on our phones even though we know we’ll never capture the beauty and wonder of space. We cheer for sports while staining our shirts with mustard only to realize it when we end up on the kiss cam. We listen to music with our windows rolled down and marvel at an always changing setting sun. We dance, we cook, we convene for performances, we write in diaries and make junk journals. We decorate our homes and light candles that smell like our favorite things. We dig our feet into sand and sway in the sun in hammocks while reading the stories of strangers and people who came before us but aren’t all that different. We make wishes on eyelashes and dandelions and shooting stars. We run and hike and take big gulps of air into our lungs as we explore the vast and truly insane magic of our planet and beg time to slow down so we can appreciate it all before it slips away and we’re onto the next thing to appreciate before it too becomes only a memory.

Humanity, at its core, to me, is beautiful.

(Psst! Girl! I can see your optimism through those jeans!)

But like, seriously, pretty good, for a girl who is only twenty-nine, huh?

Don’t get it twisted though. I mean, I know the world is trash - it just is. There’s pain and suffering and unimaginable and horrendous injustices happening literally every second of every day in all corners of the world.

I just have to stay positive, I guess? I have to focus on the good, or the bad will swallow me whole. And isn’t that how we have good people? The golden rules as I just stated? What would a pessimist be without their optimist? Is this why we live in a world with both golden retrievers and cats (sorry to this man)?

And maybe that’s incredibly naïve of me. You’re patting my head and calling me honey (and not in a hot way) at this thought process, and I get it, I really do. I know I sound like the world can be fixed with a smile and a good attitude. I know it can’t. But…

I also know that a smile and a good attitude is contagious, and maybe, just maybe, me smiling at the gas station attendant and giving them a compliment means they give an overworked and severely underpaid teacher in line the same. And while her gas station coffee is bitter and burnt and not all that great, she instills hope and love and good in a future generation in her classroom later that day. Or I don’t know! I sit next to a business bro on a plane who’s nose is stuck in a phone and mouth in a scowl until I put on Jurassic Park and I catch them watching it without sound. And maybe they were just a dinosaur kid and they go on to have a horrible day, but for a brief while, they enjoyed some dinosaurs again and I helped them do that. Or maybe they love the movie as much as me. And they remember their dreams. So they quit their job that’s killing them and they go on to make movies and win an Oscar some day.

Like, seriously, stay with me. I know it may seem childish to think this way, but also…don’t you see the world needs a little bit more of this kind of thinking? This kind of hope?

I do.

So I guess, welcome to Superbly Sanguine.

I know that a positive attitude and a smile isn’t going to solve all of the world’s problems or even my own, and that we have to fight for change and justice and keep getting up when we really don’t want to because someone else needs us to.

But I have to have spaces like this where I can express my gratitude and create and keep some semblance of my hope and awe for the humanity that I know and believe in. So that when I see that my cup is half empty, I do still have something left in it, and someone else might be dying of thirst. So I can choose to give it to them, let them drain my cup because they really needed it, and I can rest assured, knowing that my cup will get full again from the people I surround myself with and the spaces I create, like this one.

Here, I can spew out my thoughts about how I’m still a defensive driver (in the literal and metaphorical sense), and that I know I can’t control the world around me, and if someone does make a mistake that ends up hurting me (an inevitability of the universe). I can make it make sense, here. Maybe they didn’t mean to cut me off because they were just singing along to the bass in Flash Mountain (dude, same) or their partner was having a baby. I can offer someone the benefit of the doubt here instead of immediately thinking they’re out to get me and the world is so cruel, ya know?

With Superbly Sanguine, I can assure people that, while of course I love a plan and a schedule (we still love a color coded system in this house, you should see my bookshelf), I do know that there’s beauty in the mistakes and unexpected detours, that the bumps in the road are there not as block, but to caution you to slow down and take it all in, you’re trying to get to the final destination without enjoying the journey! I can remind someone, and myself, that you cannot plan anything because there’s already a plan for you, and what’s supposed to happen will happen exactly when and how it’s supposed to happen to you. I can offer just the teeniest tiniest bit of reprieve from the cacophony of negativity and opinions, even if it’s only for myself to slip into when I desperately need it.

Hello? Is this thing on? Can Horton hear me on this speck floating along with no rhyme or reason? Did he catch me on his clover? Is he listening to what I have to say? Are you?

Anyways. If any of that made any sense to you, if any of it resonated with you: Hey. I’m Taylor. We’ll probably get along great. If you’d like more of that, don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back after this commercial break.

Seriously though, thanks for being here. Listed below are my individual newsletters that will be a bit different than what you just read and may be more your speed, and if not, totally get it, we can’t all be Jack and Annie and remain on the bus (too much of a stretch for a reference? Maybe, but it clearly didn’t stop me). There are plenty of other spaces out there, and I hope you find the one that lets you escape when you need to, and inspires you to keep going.

Love you, mean it 💛

-Taylor

Superbly Sanguine:

The main substack with blog like posts similar to what you just read, photography, and general creative and hope for humanity type thoughts and things.

Superbly Caffeinated:

I’ll be picking out a daily prompt (word, song title, movie scene, etc) a mug from my impressive (she said humbly) collection, and writing while I caffeinate for the first 20 minutes of my day every day I can.

I’ll post whatever I write here, and encourage others to join in on the prompts which will be posted on my Instagram as well.

Superbly Subjective:

“Reviews” on books, film and music.

Essentially, a space to collect my overwhelming thoughts after finishing a book, movie, and/or hearing a new song or album. A diary of sorts about my interests at this time in my life and the impact the art I read, view, and listen to has on me.