Perfection

I reviewed the photos I took at the Rose Garden a few days ago, looking at close up views. What I saw was beauty, so rare and so perfect, that even the tiny imperfections of weathering on the edges of petals, the occasional tiny bug bite, a discoloration from age or water, could not mar the exquisite rightness of these delicate creations.

I am drawn to many things in my life: but flowers call me the most. I cannot imagine living long without a garden. Even in this tiny apartment we have plants on the patio. And I have already mentally landscaped our new house. Flowering bushes of every hue, every size color the landscape of my mind. Trees, bushes, tiny flowers, tall proud gladiolas, sassy climbing roses, frumpy hydrangeas.

I'm wondering how much I can cram into the tiny spaces our yard will afford us. Unlike the Iowa house, this garden will be private, hidden by bushes and woven fence, created for us -- to provide a badly needed secluded spot of tranquility. We will contemplate the imperfect perfection of nature as we watch the garden change with the seasons. We hope to have visitors: hopping, flying, slithering, fluttering visitors; come for the water and the berry bushes and hiding spaces.

A garden is chaotic perfection, a recognition that things left alone for the most part, given only minimal protection from that which is foreign, will grow to their own quiet beauty. The best we can do is rejoice in the gift of nature and feed our souls and minds with the natural perfection that is around us. The most we can ask of ourselves is to walk as gently as we can upon the land.

Quiet thoughts, inspired perhaps by the gentle but sad departure of Randy Pausch. I cannot mourn with suffering, but instead with a quiet joy that this lovely man taught so many of us to see and feel and touch the beauty while we can.

Perfection -- in a flower, a leaf, a tiny bug on a twig swaying in the wind; all this and more, available if we only look and see.