Preserved

I was at a market the other day with my friend when we stopped to admire a collection of beautiful Japanese plants on sale.

There was a quaint sign posted near them that stated the arrangements were completely self-sufficient.

They absorbed enough moisture from the air so they didn’t require watering and they easily maintained their manicured shape within the painted containers they were sold in.

“That’s my kind of plant!”

I exclaimed enthusiastically as I reflected on the wilting remains of greenery I’d been struggling to keep alive back at my apartment.

As we walked on, I shifted my attention to a nearby bush blossoming with bursts of orange, pink and yellow flowers.

It was unruly and remarkable — a bold display of what I yearned to be, but also feared becoming.

Wild, bright, chaotic, and colorful.

It’s sporadic branches jutted out over heaps of fallen petals, sprouting new buds despite — or perhaps because of — the massive loss it endured.

I gently ran my fingers through one particularly flirtatious inflorescence and witnessed with both sadness and admiration as several small flowers fell effortlessly to the ground, perfectly at peace with their fate — willing to let go beneath the slightest touch.

Glancing back at the shop display, I realized my affinity with the potted plants was actually an empathetic nod to their conditioned existence.

I had been raised to be a tidy terrarium.

I knew how to hold my poise and present a peaceful kind of pretty to the world.

Douses of fresh rain and beams of direct sunlight were not necessary in the glass bubble I learned to quietly sustain myself within.

And yet a part of me cried for such searing elements.

What’s the point of being a perfect product if you forever stay alone and the same?

Growth is natural. And so is death.

Yet we strive to create conditions for denying both in order to prevent pain — not knowing that the very act of refusing our vulnerable fragility is what causes the most suffering of all.

Hell, what if we all sought to be weeds?

Budding up wherever we wanted, confronting conformity with defiance and daring to be unwieldy with our lives — regardless of standard aesthetics — knowing deep in our roots that we have a right to life even if others didn’t understand our purpose.