"So don't forget to stop and smell the flowers along the way...."

In the end, when all the trials and tribulations of the modernized, technologically infused aspects of day-to-day life are cast aside by the frustrated individual, a glint of the beauty in which our society has so rudely begun to ignore, sparkles, like the shimmer of a shiny object as it begs to be picked up the unsuspecting passerby. Full of possibility is that shiny object, for one may mentally illustrate hundreds of creatively inscribed potential within it. That shiny object may have been just that at first notice; after a moments thought, it could be a glistening, magnificent and mysterious treasure waiting to be claimed; after forethought, that initially insignificant gleaming entity may be that one nonpareil to ones true potential. And so it with life.

At 5:22 p.m., no cars accompany the parking lot of Kaiser Permanente. No one is there, except the occasional compact-sized sedan or Toyota hybrid. At 5:22 p.m., the constricted patterns of bricks framing the outline of the buildings architecture lack in the forced compassion in which they were built upon, usually characterized by the steady flow of the sick, of the old, and of the mysophobics. Without them, the building can be viewed freely, dutifully and with unhindered sagacity. Yet, coincidentally enough, the building plan for such is not-so mysteriously located on a stretch of Lakeville Highway in which the maximum speed is fifty-five and your everyday adequate driver must concentrate hard enough to find no free time to look over and study the architecture of said medical edifice.

Pediatrics, optometry, physiology, pharmaceuticals, and oncology; lot A, lot B, lot C, and lot D; a sense of ordered, and almost impatient vehemence provides implications to the various aspects of the building, like that of an airport: always traffic, yet none with the intention of staying. Underneath a near nauseating demarcation of patterned bricks, and rhythmic lawn lines from it’s most recent mowing, lies a barely visible chaos most estimably characterized by the hectic design of the parking lot; with it’s uneven geometrical shapes and with no clear pattern to each corresponding lot, a confusing predicament is found only in the truly observant, and gives a sense of inconsistency, and tarradiddle.

The two adjoining Kaiser buildings, superimposed so as that a reference of a family home with an extended garage could be, essentially within reach, begins a sort-of panorama. Beyond it, lies the chaotic parking lot, framed, once again by rhythmic patterns, matching that of the uniform brickwork lining the exterior walls. Farther along, however, one will find oneself confused at first sight, to come across the field of mustard flowers. It is unfitting, unnatural after focusing upon such a group of buildings with forced uniformity. Beyond the Lakeville highway, stands a perceptibly word-down and rusted fence. Its visible weakness is overlooked once the incredible vastness in which the mustard flowers occupy becomes apparent to the viewer’s eye. From rust, one can see yellow; from highway, one can see field. In the spring, the mustard flowers bloom with an unmatched rapidity that almost seems to sweep across the field like the winter breeze that now occupies the empty spaces. Unproportional, thick stalks slyly emerge from their brown dens of dirt, like a volatile bear after hibernation, in hopes that perhaps this year their flowers will bloom with far more magnificence than ever before; perhaps this year they’ll spread all the way to the mountains lining the back of their field; perhaps this year more people will stop to gaze upon their brilliance, but alas, dear flowers, for here is your fate: in accordance to a hospital, your ability to heal will always be second best.

While a tumultuous sense of chaos hovers over the buildings in which characterize a seemingly false sense of compassion and care for individuals well being, an even harsher, palpable, truth lies just across the street, in a field of soft, yellowing flowers. Temporarily stagnant there, with such a seemingly carefree manner, those flowers portray an unexpected reality of chaos, one that isn’t hidden by falsity and order. As just the patient observer, a very outlandish realization became clear to me as I sat upon the lonely, and cold bench overlooking the mustard field: these two spaces are not so vastly dissimilar as first theorized; they each hold the power and possibility of healing, and with that power, comes the ever growing need for not only personal inclination, but for overall preference. Yet, in our current, profane and blasphemous society, modern health-care seems to be the cure for nearly everything. It would be best to just stop for a moment, take in the fresh, fragrant perfume of high grasses and thick leaves; let the unsullied, aroma of glistening dew upon soft, golden-yellow petals fill your senses. My dear reader, do me a favor, stop and smell the flowers for only just a moment.

-Brittany