Tag: Birmingham

Weeds are organic rebels. They grow where they want to grow. They are hardy and relentless. They seem small and conquerable but ask a gardener how much effort he or she has to spend fighting them. You will see how formidable they are.

On the day I took these photographs, the sunlight hit them in such a way that I could respect and admire them for the first time. And it made me question whether this, like most other wars, was a war worth fighting. The images I saw answered my question for me. I expect nobody else will agree, but maybe it’s time to make peace with weeds. I hate false dichotomies, straw men and making enemies where they are not needed. So I decided that I didn’t want to wait for the obliteration of my green crack-dwelling friends before I could fully enjoy how beautiful it was to be in my garden bathed in light, sitting on a badly constructed patio.

This made me realise that we should never wait to feel joy at being alive and sharing particles or structures with all that surrounds us.

We are all one big simultaneously smelly, ugly, beautiful, broken, delicate, intelligent, contrary, wilful and mysterious bunch of things lumped together in this world so we may as well like and respect one another.