Day 51: In my neighborhood.
I stood in my quiet suburban neighborhood and looked down at the patch of wildflowers at my feet. Country fields and roadside valleys are filling now with Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, Evening Primrose, and Verbena. Legend in Texas has it that I can pluck every color but blue. Blue is privileged. Blue is protected. Even though blue is every bit as much of a weed as the rest of the color growing around it, it’s held in higher regard.
The red is lovely. The green has its own delight. The yellow is breathtaking. But blue is deemed worthy.
I am blue.
I was born blue. And even though as a child I wanted to be any color but blue because every other color I saw had more love and had more life than blue, I was born blue.
I am still blue. Though I may have been stepped on and my petals ripped, though I may have wondered if there would ever be a field for growing or water for nourishing, I am still blue.
I will die blue. As much as I attempt to hide my own hue or become a rainbow of color so that no one really sees me, I will die blue.
Even though I understand my worth as no greater or less than any other color – even if I see us all as fortunate weeds that are blessed with beauty – I am yet blue.
And in that moment, my prayer becomes this –that my presence may help and not harm, complement rather than compete, that the privilege of my blue might become a protection for the rest of the garden, that the honor given this one weed may be used to honor others.
Or else there is no beauty in blue.