On a Saturday afternoon

What is more beautiful, more meaningful, more metaphoric than a red rose. You can face an entire lifetime of mundane experiences, but when a red, red rose pops up in front of you, the whole world stops. Nothing can get in your way enjoying its color, its form, its smell, its very being. But you know that it won't last forever, and that it is the paradigm for all that is ephemeral. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may because time she be a flying. So you forget about a sore shoulder, the smell of moldering garbage, the unwashed dishes, the random sock on the floor, a smudge on the window, or any one of a million things that need fixing, putting away, or throwing out. The rose is both eternal and ephemeral because it embodies so much of what we feel each and every day. If you grab the stem wrong, you run the risk of getting a thorn in the thumb, and a little bit of that red drips onto your white shirt. The rose is never perfect, but then again what is? Our little existential nightmare, which we pass waiting for Godot, drips and leaks into our unruly subconscious, raising our levels of anxiety to new levels. But the rose just sits there. It doesn't judge or make snide remarks, it doesn't snore or fall asleep. Its velvety petals exude a simple aroma that we envy and copy, but never conquer. The mundane will always be there: life, death, failure, smiles, cries, success. Green leaves, pointy thorns, red velvet petals.