gratitude-a-thon day 3002: the balance that provides the beauty

When I was walking Daisy today I was noticing all the flowers that are giving off end of summer 23 vibes. Some already fading with petals dropping to the ground, others ebullient and narcissistic. And yet others, just coming to life on autumn’s clock.

As we were making our way to the dog park, I noticed this old wooden fence, a picket fence that would be in front of the perfect house with 2.5 kids, you know the one? And it was pretty beaten up, chipped away paint, probably on the owner’s list of Things to Replace That I Don’t Have Money to Replace. Wound around it’s rickety pickets were delicate and vibrant hot pink roses. The look of the old and the bold, the tender and the seen-better-days just stopped me in my tracks.When I finally walked by, I wanted to go back for a picture, but Daisy was anxious to get on with the walking part of the walk, so I resisted.

But what I started thinking about is how everyday is made up of the coming up and going out, the shine and the shit, or put simply, the bad and the good . We see the beauty of a bride and groom from afar, never knowing that the blushing bride had lost her first husband to a tragic car crash. Or you admire someone who buys a house, but don’t see they work on fixing its faulty parts every weekend for the next three years. Or you watch a go-getter go get all the way up the ladder, but you never glimpse how his oe her spouse left them on a rainy night in April, or how they never had anyone in their lives that fit the definition of “friend” in Merriam Webster’s big volume.

But you know, the yin and yang is what gives the world its balance. Seeing those roses on that old fence made me understand how one enhanced the other in the same way a rough path makes you appreciate the freshly rolled black tar pavement of a newly laid street. The fears that haunt you in the black of night disappear into a sun-filled morning of possiblity. The impossibly ugly.and hearty sadness of death is paled by the arrival of a new baby who cries from deep in their tiny lungs, “hello, world.”

I’m grateful that I’ve grown to understand that failures, bad days, questionable dates that could bore one into a welcoming coma, crushing defeats–personal and otherwise–failed classes and love affairs and jobs, were always providing the manure that would make the good days, the successes, the adventures, friends and love that much more. That much more beautiful.