Beauty is always there if you look for it. I walked into our torn up bathroom the other day. It was in a state of disarray with floorboards ripped up, fixtures displaced and a gaping hole where the bathtub used to be. Amidst the decaying floorboards was a brightly colored piece of linoleum. The color and design seemed to more closely resemble wallpaper or upholstery, but our handyman assured me that it was indeed linoleum. I wondered how long it had been there and who would have chosen such a pattern for the floor. Although strange, it was beautiful – the orange and red flowers and green leaves were the sole splashes of color left in the otherwise shredded room. It, along with a few original floorboards, were solitary survivors of history, holding stories they unfortunately could not spill. Ripped, molding, aged and covered for years, there was still something about this piece of flooring that seemed to be bursting with life. The orange flowers sprouted from amidst the green leaves and the gray floor mirroring the real flowers outside. There, the world was inverted, the gray sky opening up and reaching down to the welcoming tulips below with crystal drops of rain. The tulips lay open and vulnerable, their beauty fleeting. They would soon wither and die. The lonely linoleum would soon join the rest of the bathroom’s rubble in the trash heap. For a moment, however, both burst with color and life, begging for us to do the same.
Writing Prompt: Write about a time you found beauty in the unexpected.
