I love flowers and my photography heavily features flowers. I feel that they are nature's pops of happiness. Several days ago I was going through old photos I had taken and found this delightful Matilija Poppy. Sometimes called a fried egg flower, the Matilija poppy is eye catching and I just couldn't help feeling happiness after examining each until I found the ones I wanted to capture with my lens. With so much going on in the world, it is easy to forget to smile and to get sucked into the drama. With the pandemic as well as the hyper-partisan world we live in it is easy to get sucked into the drama. I've never been much for the drama roller coaster and tend to want to get off after a few trips. When I find that I am in a feed back loop, I work on breaking it by focusing on how perfect nature is. Nature can be brutal in its honesty but that is simply the other side of the coin. Here we have a perfect flower, perfect because it is doing what is supposed to do, not perfect in that is above all other Matilija Poppies, but perfect in attracting pollinators and coaxing humans to appreciate it, thus ensuring it's survival into the next generation. It's so easy to focus on what is imperfect in the our world, that it is hard to remember: "Hey, wait I am perfect. I may not be the most perfect human specimen ever, but I am the most perfect me for this moment." I'm letting this thought sit with me for a few minutes. If I any one person were complete perfection, there would be no need to grow, to learn, to improve. Being perfect means there is no place yet to go, to explore, the raison d'etre would be mooted. The Matilija Poppy when its purpose has been fulfilled, it fades and disappears. My purpose has not been completed and will never be completed. I will have something more to strive for, I will have something for to learn, I will have someone one else to connect to, I will always have more, need more, can always be more. This is the joy of being a human--the constant quest to improve, learn, and be more than we were before. It's easy to get bogged down in petty concerns but when we open ourselves up, connect with nature, we see that we are so much more. Carpe Diem. You got this.
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