Written by: Jorinde Berben
Photos by: Jorinde Berben
I love flowers. I love their unapologetic splashes of color; their varied shapes and sizes; their celebratory expression of life. I know few people who don’t see beauty in flowers. They are well-recognized and easy to love.
Flowers belong to Spring, and Summer mostly. They show themselves when the plant is ready to bloom, no sooner and no later than that. Spring and Summer can show off this widely accepted and appreciated symbol of beauty, but they are not the only seasons that bloom.
Last Wednesday afternoon, I took a short walk through the nearby forest. It’s the beginning of October. There are fewer actual flowers now, but the forest is coloring itself in in so many other ways. It set me to thinking (and taking pictures, a sample of which you can see below).
Each Season has its flowers. Some are obvious, and bright, and easily noticed. Some flowers you have to look for. They are small, hidden, understated. They don’t really look like flowers, but have a beauty that is of an altogether different nature.
It’s the same with our lives. In our Spring time and our Summer, it can be easy to look around and see the beauty in healthy and strong bodies, shiny hair, new love and new born children. We enjoy our friendships that grow and flourish. We build careers, and homes, and families. We discover the world and ourselves. The beauty we see around us is easy for everyone to notice.
But what about the darker seasons? What about when our bodies fail us? When our once smooth skin turns saggy and wrinkly? What about when those gray hairs start showing up, or when we are faced with job loss. What about when we are faced with an even greater loss? A loss we can’t even begin to fathom?
We’re sometimes quick to judge those seasons as being dark and dead, completely void of anything worthy or anything beautiful. The beauty is there, however. We just have to look a little closer, a little deeper. And then you finally begin to see: Those wrinkels are the proof of a thousand laughs. In the gray hairs are a million cherished moments captured. And when our tears fall, the silence between each drop is filled with pure and deep love.
So when it seems like there are no flowers left in this season, open your eyes a little wider, open your mind a little more and you might just find one where you never knew to look.
Unscrewing Myself 