The day I broke down from the pressure of the semester, I bought my first bouquet of fresh flowers.
I carried them in one hand - a vibrant array of pinks and yellows and whites - holding them close to my chest. My mind was abuzz; cheeks, flushed; my heart playing a racket of incessant deafening thuds, as I raced my way through the silent piercing cold of a night. When I reached home, I offered them to the glass vase that sat empty by our living room, and watched, in their presence, as the space lit up.
For a moment, they were there: a beauty to behold.
But the days I started to heal, my flowers started to wither.
I watched as the petals fell - more and more each day; the once vibrant cluster of pinks and yellows and whites sitting in a faded heap by night. Their glow became a distant memory, only barely lingering in the days before they disappeared completely. Time had caught up - to them, an unbecoming; but to myself, a beginning.
And it was as much an irony to me as it was a wonder, to find that there is a place, a time, a moment, where things could be falling apart and at the same time, be coming together. And what a beauty that is to behold.
a study of fallen petals, an epilogue + some questions & reflections 🎕
this is a lesson I'm still learning: that things could stray from their original plans, go in a completely different way than what was imagined, be flawed and imperfect, and still, you can enjoy them. and that you can feel two things - sad and happy, confused and certain, lonely and content in solitude - at the same time and it can still make perfect sense. life is dynamic, complex and sometimes contradictory - as much as it is beautiful, wonderful and worthwhile. and so are you. you are multidimensional and you can be many things at once.
Allah said in the Quran, "For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease. Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease". as I witnessed my flowers withering and my mental health at the time blossoming, the lesson and this message became something tangible, and so it was for this story that I came. that is to learn the art of how things can fall but still come together from the art of falling petals.
How about you? How will you come for the story today? What experience or example comes to mind when you think of things coming together while also, coming apart?
this is a lesson I'm still learning: that things could stray from their original plans, go in a completely different way than what was imagined, be flawed and imperfect, and still, you can enjoy them. and that you can feel two things - sad and happy, confused and certain, lonely and content in solitude - at the same time and it can still make perfect sense. life is dynamic, complex and sometimes contradictory - as much as it is beautiful, wonderful and worthwhile. and so are you. you are multidimensional and you can be many things at once.
Allah said in the Quran, "For indeed, with hardship [will be] ease. Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease". as I witnessed my flowers withering and my mental health at the time blossoming, the lesson and this message became something tangible, and so it was for this story that I came. that is to learn the art of how things can fall but still come together from the art of falling petals.
How about you? How will you come for the story today? What experience or example comes to mind when you think of things coming together while also, coming apart?
