Lessons From Squalor Holler

You know what this is? Get ready- beginning with the obvious, it’s a dandelion. Just a weed…or is it? There are as many metaphors for weeds as there are ways to answer the question I posed. For instance, one might say this is a picture. Correct. One might say it is a picture of a house with bushes in desperate need of tending to. Also correct. It’s a girl on a porch, a poor composition with ambient lighting, fall leaves, blah blah blah. There is a special meaning in the significance of my noticing this one lone dandelion. To me, it’s as if the heavens opened up and every glorious sight ever to behold was contained within it. I thought to myself, what if I were to see everyone and everything that way, full of beauty and endless potential, in spite of what they appear to be? Human nature and ego try to shut the idea down before it gets a chance to take root, reminding me of the impracticality and sheer absurdity of looking at a strangling, tangley weed and seeing an exquisite rare flower, but I soon realize, THAT is the most worthy of notions I could ever conceive of mastering in my lifetime. I am sick and tired of the propensity of failure, according to some bunk standards that are irrelevant, to induce a numbing inertia that blacks out hope. I am a triumphant and resilient weed as well as a rare and brilliant orchid. We all are. (with as many variables by which to perceive ourselves as there are explanations to my question, metaphors for weeds, and numbers of stars in the sky. No wonder I used to love making “soup” in a big bucket full of weeds as a child, and calling it fun.)