It's A Bird...

A Bird of Paradise!

I was a junior in high school: 16 years old, when a new girl moved to our beach community of Ventura from Boston.
Her father had been a florist.

These plants, the Bird of Paradise grew free almost like weeds. They were fillers in yards and used on highway dividers. They were really no big deal. This in a town that would get you fined in the thousands for picking an avocado. I was shot in the ass several times with a caretakers bee bee gun just for playing in our neighborhood's adjacent orchard. That was value!

She was shocked at their abundance, and our apparent lack of appreciation for their value.

She explained that in Boston the Bird of Paradise went for a rather high price and only at certain times of the year. They were rare to her. Just a stalk or two in a floral arrangement: Valuable.

It's an interesting life lesson about what we take for granted in our world. The things we have in abundance that, to others are scarce and valuable. Of course now I'm not talking about the flower that in a years time she probably saw as nothing just as we did.

I no longer see the plant and it's flower as nothing. Particularly if you spot a white Bird of Paradise which was next to this but bloomed out and decaying. To me, now the plant is special. The symbol of an early life lesson, and a friendship now long past.