Imperfection of the Bloom

It's a beautiful 70-degree morning with low humidity as I walk around my garden noticing a thirsty hydrangea, decaying daylily leaves that I don't know what to do with, and a lot of maroon dahlias which long necks shooting up through foliage looking like periscopes surveying the scene.  But this one caught my eye. He's not looking like the guy in the background or any of the other dahlia pinatas blooming their hearts out in my one sun garden.  And I wonder why.  Why is he a half-bloomer?  I am watching this quirky Korean TV show, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, about an attorney who has high functioning autism.  She is misunderstood but brilliant.  Accepted, maybe even loved by a young handsome attorney who works in her building who is enamored with her for who she is with her photographic memory of Korean law and obsession with whales. But she's actively rejected while being made fun of in more than one scene.  I used to work with a young girl with autism who's father was the provost of the University of Washington.  Big job.  He came to me to ask for help.  When his daughter would come to events with him, professional events that the family was invited to, she would march up to a new person and greet him or her by pushing her nose into their arm and smelling them.  He was horrified by her.  I was horrified by how he just wanted her to be normal, perfect.  But I understood. It is so much of the way our culture works.  The perfect face, body, bank account.  I look in the mirror and see that wrinkled turkey-looking neck that I hated in my mom.  I think I need to get my droopy eyelids surgically fixed like my dad once did in his 60s.  In my best self I embrace all that I am with quirks of my own, imperfections, things people might laugh at.  I try to speak my mind and be honest which is loaded with imperfections.  But, I find that all so much easier as I age.  Why not be one of a kind?  I have always felt like those who reject others, laugh at them, make jokes at their expense are really rejecting themselves.  I am going to believe that this half-blooming dahlia, with a one-of-a-kind frilly bottom profile looking like gently folded velvet, or maybe even wings is fully embraced for who he is by his fellow bloomers as he shoots towards the sun and lives the life he's meant to live.