No Rush Toward the Inevitable Farewell

I find this image to be quite sad but hauntingly lovely and dignified at the same time.

At first I see what was once a lovely Queen Anne's Lace bloom that is now, not only dried up and past her prime, as she is trapped among the bars of the rusty fence, but she is also frozen in this untimely moment of capture. I'm guessing that the regal flower would not want to be seen caught in this way.

But, in looking further, when I concentrate straight into the heart of the image, I also see a quiet, meditative stillness. I imagine that the spirit of the old bloom is still going strong and the cold and ice of this day, as well as the stabilizing structure of the fence, only serve to help the flower as she slowly moves closer toward her final farewell.

It is a fact of life that the bloom will eventually break down and return to the elements of the earth but on this day she is hardened and solid in time as she is helped by the fence and ice and, in no pressing rush toward the finish line, the queen flower is standing still and strong.

Beauty of the Third Age

I was very pleased this past weekend when a customer at the craft show was taken with this photo.

I love this photo but since it's not your typical, easy to understand, photo of a fresh and pretty delicate flower I had thought that no one else out there would like it like I do.

But there was someone!

I explained that this is a photo of an old, dried out and "wilted" hyacinth blossom. She suggested to me that the bloom wasn't wilted but was "weathered" and I agreed wholeheartedly. That's why the name of this image is, "The Beauty of the Third Age."

As a woman over 40, who is nothing but *thrilled* to have turned that corner of the aging milestone process, I see this weathered hyacinth flower, in its third phase of existence, as a gorgeous, vibrant and enduring bloom which portends only continued strength and increased self-possession as the days, and time, inevitably will march along...