A Garden of Delights

I wasn’t planning on making this post.  With so much going on, it didn’t seem I could find the right headspace to write for August McLaughlin’s Beauty of a Woman blogfest, but I just started reading Elizabeth Anne Mitchell’s “The Most Beautiful Woman” post…  and it got me thinking about how impossible that would be for me to nail down that title to one person.

For me, there is no “most beautiful” woman, unless she is the woman I’d just met and the one I might meet next.

She’s that homeless person that just walked into Bruegger’s this morning with a creaking shopping cart full of plastic bags, most carrying scraps of clothing.  She spent a half-hour in the bathroom, using it to bathe.

She might be the manager who saw Emily (not her real name) come in the store and who smiled and said cheerfully “Are we out of milk?  Would you like more?” and made small talk with her.  And made sure to leave a cup with some bagel bites and made sure there was extra milk and cream left out for the homeless woman to get a small meal before Emily left, wrapping a plastic bag about her shoulder to block off the cold wind.

Perhaps that most beautiful woman is the one I met in line while getting my sandwich.  Despite some rushing, we had a wonderful conversation about the weather and how the sky is so pretty in the Winter.

Perhaps she is the receptionist at my son’s school who managed the most amazing smiles even though she lives in daily fear for her son’s life because an autoimmune disorder.

Yes, and no…

She’s my sister-in-law, my grandmother, my mother, your mother, your sister, your wife… you.

She is all of us.

♥ to all of us  And to the men in our lives too.  You guys are beautiful too!

Photo credits:

• Beauty of a Woman BlogFest logo (August Mclaughlin)
• English: A picture of a plastic milk bag holder (or pitcher) with a lid pouring milk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
• Just Women (Photo credit: tchon92)