Beauty Is Where You Find It

It’s the end of June, and the fruit’s just beginning to ripen. All around me, the season is coloring in: peaches, apples, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries. Even the garden is in full expression—squash, cucumbers, tomatoes in flower. Their blossoms are so bold and fleeting, I’ve started carrying my camera on walks, hoping to catch them in that brief, golden light.

A few mornings ago, I got into my car and spotted what looked like a single flower petal clinging to the driver’s side of the windshield. Pale lavender with a deep purple center, like a starburst or maybe a little cosmos. I figured the rain had pressed it there overnight.

As the sunlight poured through it, thin and luminous like stained glass in motion, I found myself watching it at red lights, admiring how the day lit it from behind. A small, silent witness to my commute.

It stayed there for days. I let it. I even tried to identify it with my plant app, but nothing matched. Still, it was lovely, so I let it ride ahead of me—an ambassador of goodwill.

Then this morning, after a long, heavy rain, I got in the car, looked again, and finally saw it for what it was.

Not a petal.
Not a bloom.
But a bird turd.

Running down the glass.

And I laughed out loud—because really, what else can you do?

It made me think of that line: “Beauty is where you find it.”
Because sometimes it’s not about what you’re looking at.
It’s about how you’re choosing to see the world.