Chihuly glass sculptures greet the visitor.
Lovely flowers and flowering trees line the meandering pathways throughout the park. Huge Koi slurp around the surface of their pond hoping that the visitor walking toward their habitat has picked up fish food at the visitor center.
A Japanese garden provides a peaceful place to meditate while listening to the rippling sound of water trickling over stones.
Two hours of meandering, stopping to read labels, sitting and enjoying the breeze through the trees is enough to shed stress and slow hurry. A modern-day Eden, a place created for the enjoyment of the senses.
And then....
Yes, in the midst of unique, labeled, groomed trees and flowers appeared dandelions, the bane of the modern gardener, the black eye on the surface of a lawn, the F grade for the horticulturist. In the midst of carefully crafted gardens a weed insists that it will thrive.
And it got me to thinking. I had spent a few hours enjoying a perfectly groomed place only to find out a dirty little secret growing amidst the beauty. Kind of like a life, I thought, perhaps my own life. Perhaps like yours.
We carefully groom our lives to look real good to the casual observer. But if one looks closer, the ugly can be seen.
Sometimes we don't see the dandelions because there is so much beauty in our life and it kind of covers up those little patches of not-so-pretty thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. For the most part, say 90%, we look pretty good. Sadly, like the one bad apple in a barrel of apples, one dandelion in a life will insidiously put down roots that are almost impossible to eradicate. The one pretty little yellow blossom turns to a fluffy sphere that holds a thousand other dandelion possibilities.
Just my meandering thoughts while meadering.
And that's what I think about it.
