So what if you’re not a rose, you might just be a mustard weed

I know we are constantly aware and even bombarded my pre-conceived ideas about beauty and worth.  For example, the rose seems to get top-billing as a flower of beauty.   We associate it as a representative of love.  It’s beheld as a flower of elegance.  We put a high value on the beautiful flower, called a rose.  And, it is gorgeous, so that isn’t necessarily wrong.  However, this morning, as I was driving home from dropping the kids off at school, I was contemplating how the concept of beauty is all perception.  Ever known someone who wouldn’t have been called a classic beauty, but the longer you knew them, the more beautiful they appeared to you?  Deep thoughts for only one cup of coffee in my system, but these thoughts were all precipitated by a small weed.  Seriously.

Last year the mustard weeds were so beautiful.  I could hardly wait to photograph in them.  Remember this session?

Well ever since then, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the return of my beautiful yellow flowers.  (The ones my eight year old assured me last year, “They’re WEEDS mom, not flowers.”)  When I say eager, I mean I have been about-to-come-out-of-my-skin excited to see their little heads starting to poke up.  I have been dreaming of sessions amidst them.   It wasn’t until yesterday that I even knew what they were called.  Another photog friend had already managed to do a session in them. (I’m not the only one who gets excited about these beauties.)   After I commented on her post, she mentioned their name, “Mustard weeds.”

Not too fancy, right? “Mustard” and  “Weeds.”  right there in the name.  Not exactly words you associate with beauty. Unless you are my dad.  I think he might be the one person in the world who actually considers mustard beautiful.  Back to the point.  It sure wasn’t a bed of roses that made me pull over to the side of the road this morning and stand in the public eye in my house-shoes, ratty sweatshirt and horrendous silver basketball shorts, because I had to get a shot of them.

So, I say to you this morning.  Even if you don’t perceive yourself as a rose, doggone it, you may be someone’s mustard weed.   And that my friend, is a beautiful thing, indeed.