So many colors.  Bold red, joyful yellow, innocent white, vulnerable pink, vibrant purple.  Optimistic and lively and hopeful. But not all of the time. These flowers are not in bloom for long.  Most of the year they are barely alive, shriveled and struggling, waiting for their time to shine. It’s a vicious cycle.  So many months of anticipation and buildup for a few months of freedom. And then suddenly, they’re back to where they began.  

Schools everywhere are filled with chrysanthemums.  These places are ridden with creative children just waiting to be set free, as if they were caged birds.  They feel suffocated by the immense amount of pressure on them. They carry a heavy load on their shoulders put there by society, made up of their elders and peers, and it crushes them.  But for a brief period each year, they are relieved of their burden. They walk, run, skip, dance their way through life for those short months and then, before they know it, the fall season hits them like a bat to a baseball.  Expectedly, but still forcefully still.