Through the Neighborhood

Despite that it was in the mid-fifties, it was still February in Maryland, so nature didn't really match the temperature. As I walked through the neighborhood, the only green I saw was evergreens, which remind me of Christmas trees. The rest of the trees are bare. The grass is dormant for the winter. But the sky is blue, one of the only remaining natural colors in winter, was beautiful. Sure, the houses are colorful, some of them anyway, depending on how adventurous the neighbors were when they picked out the color of their siding and shutters for their houses that look the same as the one four doors down. Some cars are colorful, once again, depending on their owners' tastes. Occasionally, I passed someone walking their dog. They nodded at me, I nodded at them, and we both kept on walking our separate ways through nature. Everything out there either was nature or was in it for a while. Every now and again, a few dead leaves crunched under my feet. I like that sound. As I neared the end of my walk, I remember thinking that the mid-fifties were warmer than previous days, but it's still just a little chilly for me. When I reached my front porch, I looked at the flower beds and noticed a few green leaves, the beginnings of the hosta plants, coming up through the mulch and I smiled.

Looking back, I can't help but compare those observations to previous times I've walked the same route in the middle of spring or summer when all the leaves are green and the squirrels and bunnies are out and the flowers are blooming. When I walk that same route in spring or summer, I always immediately think it's obviously beautiful because of the bright colors and copious amounts of sunshine. The beauty of nature is much less obvious in winter, when even if the weather is nice for a day, everything remains dormant. Now I realize that's the beauty of nature in winter, it's dormant state. The fact that trees and other plants can practically stop all metabolic functions for a time and then grow again like they never stopped is incredible, miraculous, and beautiful, absolutely beautiful, just like the blue sky that was still as blue as it would be in the spring. Seeing the hosta and daffodils starting to come up just a little bit too early in my flower beds made me remember that about plants, that even when I don't see their beauty immediately, it's still there, just below the surface. I guess that works with people too. 

Sometimes people get too absorbed in the instantaneous physical appearance that they don't bother to look at the beautiful life with amazing potential that truly matters just below the surface. People are kind of like plants in that way. Some are beautiful on the outside, but rotting on the inside. Sooner or later, the outside reflects the inside. Some plants appear to be plain and boring, until their flowers blossom and then they're as beautiful and amazing on the outside as they are on the inside. People can become a bit too worried about appearances, so when they see a plain, boring looking person, they look no further or think no further about them, when if they did, they'd realize that the real, beautiful, miraculous life is just under the surface, waiting to show itself at the right time.