Every morning I wake up to the fragrance of flowers that seep through my windows from the well tendered flowered garden of my neighbour. Like a perfect patch of colours on a wooden palette, they are beautifully arranged like a bridal bouquet. Before the sun steps out from the east, I watch these little things like feathers swerve in every direction. I guess that’s how I receive my daily portion. I pray alongside, hoping someday I will see the beautiful tender hands that nurture the garden.
But not only has the flowers amazed me every morning, the gentle arms of a stranger feeling flowers from garden to garden leaves me pondering for many hours. The stranger had left me a note one day, asking for my permission to smell the flowers in my garden and feel them for just a few minutes.
One of such mornings I had asked from my windows, “What is special about my garden flowers?” To me, they were mere dying, uninviting flowers and with no peculiar smell. She returned my question with a smile and said, “At least, they are beautiful than the ones in my garden. Pointing towards the direction of a plant in my garden, she added, “Can’t you smell the fragrance? It is pretty amazing plant!”
That morning, I watched her move from garden to garden. I suspected she had written all the neighbours of her morning flower adventures. Everyone within vicinity seems to love her around their gardens. At least I could count a couple of neighbours saying hello and bidding good morning while others chatted her up.
Something was peculiar about this strange young woman. She was an epitome of beauty with bold beautiful frame. She had a smile, so unending like the flowers in my neighbour’s garden, never running dry like a stream. If I could borrow a line from the movie “diary of a black mad woman”, her smiles made my world complete.
It’s being three months I have been doing this daily watch but today came with a difference.
I woke up to the noise of digging in the garden and not to a fragrance. Someone was pulling the flowers in my neighbour’s garden with anger. The fellow must be pretty mad this morning, I thought. How could she? I jumped out of my room with pyjamas and ran hurriedly to her. Everyone was quite amazed and standing from afar to watch the scenario. Those flowers meant the whole world to me, I said. Storming on the woman, I shouted, “Are you running out of your mind”. Who gave you right to take out flowers from this garden? Out of frustration, I shouted more at her and asking, “If this was her plan on everyone’s garden”.
“They are mine, I own them and I was keeping them until last night”, she replied. I felt ashamed but still angry within. It wasn't long that I realized it was the pretty stranger. This reality made me angrier and it wasn't long before I started struggling to get the shovels from her hand. She started crying, and mumbling words that I could hardly understand.
Why did you destroy these pretty flowers? Can’t you see? Are you blind? Can’t you see they are beautiful and make this neighborhood glitter? Answer me. Are you blind? I shouted the more. The reality that I could be sued for harassing my neighbour who was the owner of the well tended garden started seeping in like water through the rock.
After a few minutes, she slowly responded pleading for me to return her walking stick and shovel. “Please, I am blind.” I returned her walking stick thinking she was mocking me. How come my flowers don’t smell good? How come I can’t have what everyone has? Why are my flowers long and thin? She added.
I was shocked by these words. Of a truth, she was blind. Without the walking stick, you can hardly tell she was blind for she looked all complete.
First the strange woman was my neighbor. She was blind and never realized the true beauty of what she had. Her flower made the environment boom. She could smell the fragrance from my garden, but she could not see the beauty in hers. I took her arms to the nearly uprooted removed flowers and told her to feel them.
You garden is the most beautiful of all in this neighborhood We are all tending our plants to be like yours. It so sad you never knew. You never tendered these flowers but they are a true reflection of your beauty. I have been longing to meet the tender arms that nurture the garden. I never knew you lived in the neighborhood. I quickly added that I was sorry. "I am sorry for shouting at you", I said out loudly.
It seems that my words brought light to her soul. She started to cry softly.
I realized from that point onward that our mind is like a well tendered garden containing beautiful flowers on every side. My Blind Neighbour on the other hand is that part of me that lives so close to me, that phase of my life that’s dark and unknown. Some people call it potential and it seems that she is asleep always but if she could wake up to the true essence of herself, she holds the beauty in her world. How could she think the neighbor's flowers were better than hers? She could hardly see a thing. That is perception. It makes us blind to the other. Like my blind neighbour, we are often times lost within the walls of mediocrity, feeling we are in-sufficient. We see nothing. Feel nothing good of ourselves. We think we are nobody and that we are completely lost and missing in our own world. We have completely forgotten that we are epitome of God’s beauty. We hide beneath the walls of the past; secretly dreaming of the future, hoping no one catches us. Like hidden faces, we are only a mirror of ourselves, empty soul beneath the mast of unaware beauty.
Possibly I am also blind to my own world. May be it’s time for me to begin to see the true beauty of the flowers in my garden for out of it comes the issues of life. Meet my blind Neighbour: The inner part of Me "My Mind". Tend your mind like a garden and open your eyes to see the beauty of God's creation.
