I never picked goldenrod for my bouquets. In spring and summer, this was easy; I found beautiful flowers of purple and pink each time we went for a walk. But as fall began to lurk into my backyard, goldenrod became one of my few choices.
I stood with my hands on the stroller staring at the rows of goldenrod on the side of the road. Would I rather have an empty pitcher in my bathroom than have goldenrod flowers in my home?
Perhaps this seems like an odd dilemma to you, so let me explain. In elementary school, I took up a hobby of picking bouquets of wildflowers for my mother. While she worked on breaking the young colt, I ran around outside the fence gathering flowers for her. Irises, ferns, daisies, and, yes, goldenrod. One night as I proudly handed my mom my latest creation, my father scoffed. “What are you doing picking that old ragweed for? Go find something better.”
I never forgot those words. As a little girl, I took those words to mean that I didn’t have an eye for beauty like my father would deem, and that I had failed yet again. I struggled with math, I picked up my mother’s accent, I was too slow to understand his horse-riding instructions, and my anxiety made me “act the fool.” Picking ragweed was yet another way I didn’t match up, so I decided I’d never pick it again—that was at least one “fault” I had control over.
After that walk on the road, I saw a picture someone had shared of a vase full of goldenrod, and its simple beauty captured me. That moment, my mind tied a loose thread that had hung stray for so long. I’ve done a lot of work to re-tie and weave what my father tore apart in my mind and, in that moment, I drew together more of those loose ends.
The next day on my family walk, I stopped my husband on the side of the road and asked him to pick some goldenrod for me. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t question. He plucked the goldenrod and placed it in the bottom of our stroller, and I placed it in the bathroom pitcher.
This caused me to wonder: Who defines beauty? Is beauty simply in the eye of the beholder, or is there something definite about beauty so that we can collectively declare this is beautiful but that is not?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to A Faithful Imagination to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.