Nothing Perfect Here

"Better a diamond with a flaw

 than a pebble without." - Confucius



Nothing perfect here.

Last week I posted a photo of a flower from my garden. My brother left me this comment:

"All those flower's you have around there and you couldn't find one that wasn't missing a petal? LMAO!!"

 

Ah, my brother, I do not seek out perfection in nature, though I am a self-admitted perfectionist. I expect it from myself but not from others, and I most assuredly do not look to find it outside.

 

I find it is not the perfect flowers that hold my attention. I notice first the ones eaten by bugs, attacked with vigor by something they cannot defend against. Beaten by beetles, these beleaguered buds are buffeted bravely in the breeze.

 

Next I notice the rose buds covered with aphids, or worse yet, powdery mold or some other fungi that is hell-bent on feasting on the flowers.

 

Those untouched, the ones doing their daily growing, stretching toward the sun, lifting their faces and making no name for themselves, I see and admire. But they do not receive much attention from me. They need none.

 

And even those are not perfect. The perfect flower eludes me. I do not grow perfection in my garden. I grown heads of beauty crowned crookedly with thorns. Indeed, it has never occurred to me to try to grow a perfect flower. I don't take them out for exhibit, after all, or showcase them in floral arrangements.

 

I simply enjoy them, imperfection and all.