I’ve been practising turning my eyes away from myself today. A week of being stuck inside has been driving me mad.

So, looking out my window(s) I started to see something I have never really considered before. Usually, I focus on the perfect artistry of deliberately coloured flowers or the exact lines of a collar tailed dove or the countless different shades of blue, grey and white in the sky. Today, as I tried to forget about my wobbly self, I began to notice all the imperfect things around me. Like that tree in the picture. The robin whose red breast was only partly filled in, the bush that was flopping over like it had lost the will to hold itself up, the petals curling off tulips, the weed that kept growing because no-one had stopped it.

I realised that even ‘beautiful’ nature is not always praiseworthy. And just because something is blemished, damaged or crooked, doesn’t mean it does not belong.

When you look at yourself, do you see what is right, or can you only recognise what you think is wrong? That tree is still a tree, the robin is still a robin, you are still you.

And all those things are remarkable.

If we were all flawless versions of human beings, if nature was consistently uniform, where would the variety be? The seasons change, light dances in and out of darkness and we all face the alterations of aging.

Nothing is held in stasis. Everything is on the move.

New days will dawn.

All we need is the eyes to see them.