Not Everything Has to Last Forever
When the dahlias bloomed this year, I almost missed them. They came all at once — a riot of crimson, peach, and blush swaying in the early autumn breeze — and then, as if they’d kept a secret appointment, they began to let go. One windy Tuesday, the petals loosened their grip, and by Friday, the garden was littered with soft, collapsing colour.
For years, I would have called that a loss. I would have clipped them earlier, tried to stretch their life in a vase, checked the weather app obsessively to make sure they lasted just a little longer.
I’ve always been someone who wanted things to last. The perfect mug without a hairline crack. The tomato vines that kept producing long after their season was over. The days with my children that I thought I could press between the pages of memory and keep untouched, forever.
But seasons — and pottery — have been teaching me otherwise.
Clay will break. Glaze will surprise you. Even when you follow the same recipe, it will sometimes drip in ways you can’t predict. The kiln gods and goddesses have their own moods, and not every piece survives the fire.
Life isn’t built to be preserved like pressed flowers. It’s meant to be lived through, moment by moment — not held in a jar on the shelf. And yet, there’s beauty in the ache of that truth.
The Japanese call it mono no aware — the bittersweet tenderness you feel when something beautiful is fleeting. The smell of rain on hot pavement. The way your dog’s fur changes as they age, soft puppy fluff turning into a coarser coat. The way your favourite cup eventually chips, and you’re left holding both the handle and the memory.
Maybe it’s not our job to make things last forever. Maybe it’s to love them so fully while we have them, that their impermanence becomes part of their beauty.
Now, when the petals fall, I let them. I walk barefoot through them, the grass damp and cool beneath me, and I think about how lucky I am to have seen them at all.
Until next time,
Nawsheen, your friendly homebody artist from Murrumbateman.
