beauty...

I was talking to ben a while back about the meaning of life.... haha.

No seriously... I can't remember how this came up, but he must have been talking about what he wanted to do next year... and somehow we got onto the subject of what we would leave behind. He was saying how cool it was that he and his sister had a house in Nelson in a trust for both of them... and how he wondered if he would ever be able to do anything with his life.
I remembered a story that I must have read to a class at one stage about an old lady, who had traveled the world, and done lots of wonderful things with her life - but didn't really have anything to show for it, and she remembered her father telling her as a child that it was our job... each of us... to leave something beautiful behind in the world.
She thought and thought about this... sitting in her cute little cottage. What was it she could leave behind. She hadn't married, and had no children. No animals for all her travel. She was no poet, or writer... so couldn't write a book about what a beautiful world it was.
Eventually she came up with an idea...
This dear old lady loved flowers, espcially lupins.

She decided that she would go for lots of walks out in the country side and scatter lupin seeds, so that people would have beautiful flowers around every spring - thus leaving something beautiful behind.

OK.. so it's a corny story.... but it takes me back to the whole legacy thing. What will you leave behind you? Will it be beautiful? Thoughtful? Full of love?

Anyway... when I finished the story ben just laughed and said... damn, there are alot of really angry people at that lady for spreading all those seeds - they've caused havok with the eco system... covering native bush! HAHAHA!
Trust him to see that side of it all.

Anyway.... Whenever I see lupins, I think of the story - which to my knowledge is fictional anyway! So, driving back home past Lake Tekapo I jumped out to grab some photos of them. I figure I can be inspired.