The Weight of Wild Things

I was walking home from the grocery store this afternoon when I saw a single, bright red flower pushing through a crack in the sidewalk. It looked so out of place against the grey concrete, yet it seemed completely unbothered by the heavy foot traffic around it. I stopped for a moment, just to look. It made me think about how often we try to curate our lives, keeping everything neat and in its proper lane, while the most beautiful things usually happen in the margins. We spend so much energy trying to control our surroundings, forgetting that there is a quiet, persistent strength in simply existing where we are planted. It is a strange, humbling thought—that something so delicate can hold its own against the weight of the world. Why do we feel the need to tame everything, when the most honest parts of our lives are the ones that grow wild and unplanned?

Kirsten Bruening has captured this exact feeling in her beautiful image titled Summer Dream. It reminds me that beauty often thrives in the places we least expect to find it. Does this image make you want to go out and find your own wild patch of color?