Day 23: a Story

For the past couple of months I’ve been participating in the FatMumSlim Photo a day challenge on Facebook and Instagram. At the beginning of each month, a list is published naming the theme for each day and participants post their interpretations of the day’s theme as the month progresses.

Today is Day 23 and the theme is “a story”. Here’s my photo and story.

Observations

So a month or so ago I noticed that there were some mighty fine Black-eyed Susans growing prolifically in the Highway medians all over East Texas. It’s summer. It’s hot and getting hotter with each day that passes. Lesser beings are wilting and getting crispy, but these beacons of beauty are growing and thriving in the most unattended place—the middle of the roads! Not just a few here and there...miles and miles of pretty flowers dotting the sides of the highways and medians. I tried several times to take some pictures of these flocks of black and yellow beauties but because of their precarious location, it’s was more than a little challenging. 

I studied them every day as I drove around—it became the highlight of the incessant miles I was driving. I noticed that there were many many ordinary Black-eyed Susans, growing in clusters, all about the same size and all at about the same point in their maturation as annuals. Each one pretty. Each  one bringing beauty to the rambling space along the roadside. Each is made more beautiful because it’s part of a collective of hundreds. 

And then I noticed the over-achiever Black-eyed Susans. The super-power flowers. The obvious rock stars. Once in a while, a small cluster of these special Black-Eyed Susans pops up, standing two or three times as tall as the ordinary ones, waving their heads in the wind. Their flowers are bigger, their stems are longer and presumably sturdier. The breezes seems to whip them about more but they keep on standing tall. 

Guardians of the highways and marauders of the medians

Untraditional beauties, raised up among the traffic and the occasional piece of litter

Growing tall, standing strong

Reminding anyone who notices that even in the thankless places and the haphazardness of a twist windy road, there is strength and beauty.

You persevere in the spring rain and the whirring wind storms

When others around you have settled with where they are, you grow taller and reach higher, spreading motivation and quiet hope just by being.

Your strength is your beauty, your example never to be doubted,

You contribute on a different plane than most everyone else,

Your taller and sturdier, you take on more than most and you stand with grace, waving in the wind, pointing the way.