Yesterday, I stopped for a dahlia.
It was not only the flower. It was the way the flower sat among the leaves, surrounded by green, as though the garden had arranged the whole scene and then waited for someone to notice.
I took a few pictures, but not enough.
I was walking with a friend, and I had already stopped more than once. Photographing a flower is not a quick thing for me. I move closer. I step back. I try another angle. I notice the leaves, the light, and everything surrounding the thing that first caught my attention.
My friend had not complained. She had not asked me to hurry.
But I did not want to burden her with my constant stopping.
So I took a few photographs and told myself I would come back alone. I could bring my camera, take my time, and photograph it properly without making anyone wait for me. It was a small decision. I barely noticed myself making it.
How long can I pause before my noticing becomes inconvenient to someone else?
I think I have been answering that question without asking it for much of my life.
This morning, I went back.
It was raining. Not quite pouring, but more than a drizzle. By the time I arrived, my sweatshirt was already beginning to soak through. The garden was supposed to open at eight. At 8:01, I was standing outside a locked gate, looking through the bars at the wet paths and the flowers beyond them.
I waited.
I saw a golf cart. Then a person. Then the golf cart moved in my direction, which felt promising.
It turned out I was standing at the wrong gate.
The gate had a lock and looked very much like a gate a person might use, but apparently it does not open. The main entrance was already open somewhere else.
Eventually, I got in.
Then I went looking for the dahlia.
I tried to retrace yesterday’s path. I looked for the leaves I remembered. I looked for the angle, the surrounding flowers, anything that might lead me back to it.
I could not find it.
Maybe I walked past it. Maybe everything looked different in the rain. Maybe I remembered the location incorrectly. Whatever the reason, the moment I had returned for was gone.
I was sad.
Not because the garden was no longer beautiful. It was. But today’s beauty did not replace the particular thing I had loved yesterday.
A new beautiful thing does not cancel the loss of another one.
Still, the garden kept offering itself. I found bronze women dancing in a fountain, their dresses lifted as though the rain had joined them. I found a purple water lily rising from dark water among green pads and fallen autumn leaves. I found a robin standing alone on the wet pavement.
None of them were the dahlia.
They were not supposed to be.
There is a Japanese concept, ichi-go ichi-e, often translated as “one time, one meeting.” It asks us to recognize that an encounter will never happen again in precisely the same way.
Even if we return to the same place, we do not return to the same moment. The light has changed. The rain has come. The flower has opened or fallen. We have changed too.
I do not think this means we have to document every second or move through life frightened that something will disappear. It means that when something asks us to stop, we should stop.
When beauty catches us, we should let ourselves be caught.
I am not sorry I spent yesterday walking with my friend. I am sorry that I decided, without asking her, that my joy might take too long.
Sometimes we hurry ourselves because we do not want our delight to become somebody else’s inconvenience.
I went back for yesterday’s dahlia and could not find it. I came home soaked, carrying an entirely different garden in my phone.
I am glad I went back.
I am still sorry I did not take more pictures yesterday.
Both are true.
The garden did not repeat itself for me. It was never going to.
So this is the lesson I am keeping:
Take the picture when you see it.
