Dogwoods

Yesterday, I was thinking of evening walks on red dirt roads under the dogwoods. It would be a month before August would arrive and I can remember all those feelings and emotions. I remember how it felt to walk, so heavy. I kept turning back to see if I was leaving footprints because each step felt like it sank into the earth. I was not. I picked a dogwood blossom off a tree.

The dogwood bloom is a plain flower that appears on the dogwood tree every spring. It always looks like it has been stepped on to me. Injured. It offers nothing other blooms do. There is no scent to it, nothing outstanding, no fruit comes from it, just a simple, four petal flower that looks like a child's drawing. I tried to make a dogwood bloom look nice once, but it stood out and remained a dogwood.  You can't even really press it between a book or wear it in your hair, or put it in a bouquet. The dogwood is so perfectly imperfect to me. 

I just had the most imperfect week of my life. It bought to mind all the other imperfections that make up my life. It is what happens. But this evening, I sank into a soft couch and opened a jewelry catalog and there was a gorgeous, sterling silver pendant with a spray of flowers. I like that I thought and dogeared the page. I went back and read the description: Dogwood Blossoms Pendant. Tonight, I made the dogwood my official flower. A tree filled with these imperfect flowers becomes an elegant, delicate sight. The details of each homely flower is obscured by the fragile beauty of thousands of them.