Ballerina Love Azaleas

When I was small and thought differently about things, azaleas were not amongst my favorite flowers. I didn’t like that if you plucked them from their stems they would quickly wilt while other flowers would last much longer.

My thoughts have shifted over the years…I love how delicate, fragile, and thin azaleas are, and that they begin to droop so quickly. It makes their brief beauty much more powerful.

I saw an azalea shrub in a front yard – with hundreds of these gorgeous orangey-coral colored flowers - and the sun was in just such a position that each flower seemed to glow. The petals are so thin that the light came right through. The image is resonant with me.

About a month later I saw the same shrub and all the blooms were gone. But across the street were these,

which are my favorite azaleas ever. They are little ballerina love azaleas. And they too, will quickly be gone but their beauty is that much more for it.