I’ve become enamored with flowers since moving to
Charlottesville. It is Spring.
One of the Sunday School classes at church
gifted us with a beautiful spread of different plants and herbs. I am sitting
next to some of them now on the landing of our staircase. They are soaking up
the light bouncing off the clouds on this overcast day. So am I.
I look at these flowers and I am overwhelmed by their color and the perfect radial qualities that make them alike while still being so, so different. Yellow, white, pink, red, green, all mixed together and shooting out in a multitude of ways in their unique, saturated hues.
Their beauty intimidates me. Nick and I are their caretakers. We are to keep them alive. I want to keep them alive. I want them to thrive. I want to see their beauty spring from the ground over the years to come. But I am afraid that I will kill them. I am prone to neglect. I tend to walk past things and leave them unnoticed. It is interesting the things my attention filters out – and what it fixates on. We’ve been married and living together for about one month. I was walking through the house today taking note of all of his stuff that is lying around out of place when my view widened a bit. I realized that I have left just as many of my own things strewn about the house. It is easy to see his mess and not mine.
I walk through the house and up and down the stairs and I look for things that need to get done. I look for the unfinished, the imperfect. Having only lived here a month, there is a lot to add to my list of things to do, if I choose to.
But these flowers are sitting here just being. Just being beautiful. And part of my role in caring for them is enjoying them, so I’ll hang here for a bit. They are a gift of love from a community that is welcoming us in. Today their colors and leaves and symmetry calmed my overwhelmed soul and let me rest for a while. They remind me to just be. To just be loved without having to do. To be loved without having to perfect. To be loved without having to plan. To just be loved.
