The Quiet Bloom

I spent an hour this morning trying to fix a leaky faucet in the kitchen. I am not a plumber, and I ended up with wet sleeves and a floor that needed mopping. It was frustrating, but then I looked out the window at the small patch of garden I usually ignore. There was a single flower, bright and steady, just existing without any effort at all. It didn’t need to be fixed or adjusted. It was simply doing what it was meant to do, tucked away in the corner of the yard. We spend so much of our lives trying to control the mechanics of our days, worrying about the drips and the mess, that we often miss the things that are thriving right in front of us. There is a strange kind of grace in letting things be, in watching something grow while we are busy losing our patience with the small, broken things. Does it ever happen to you, where a tiny bit of color makes you forget the mess you were just making?

Siew Bee Lim has captured this feeling perfectly in the image titled Hamelia Patens. It feels like a reminder to stop and look at the quiet life happening just outside our reach. What do you see when you look at these blooms?