Saturday Jack and I drove a long way to visit a sunflower field. Why? Because someone worked hard to plant those seeds that matured into beauty and
I wanted to walk amongst them. I have found throughout my life that I haven’t really belonged many places. Sure I have been in groups, a member of things, a part of things, but belonging is different. I’m different. I see and experience life very differently from many others. I feel big. I notice things others don’t notice or care much about. I’ve tried to downplay this or live as others seem to, but that never works. It just makes me feel more different, more aware. But in this field I felt alive and part of something. I held Jack’s hand as I do these days on uneven surfaces and we walked to the top pf the hill with the mountains in the background. I had tears pouring down my cheeks. I felt what these beautiful flowers were saying to me as crazy and weird as that sounds. I understood them, and in a weird way I think they understood me. Maybe it was their Creator I felt. We met the man that did the planting, but what I’m referring to is different. I felt like I understood the work each flower had put in to become what it had become. I did not take it for granted. Their beauty was breathtaking. All seeds do not mature, grow or bloom. It takes sunflower seeds 70 to 100 days to reach maturity after planting. But those in the field that I photographed had matured, grown and bloomed. They started as seeds planted in the ground. They had everything inside of themselves to grow and bloom through all sorts of conditions. and they did it. They matured in the rain and storms and in the dry conditions. They chose to grow tall and bloom unsupported. They grew by themselves receiving what they needed to bloom from the soil and the sun. Did the farmer that planted them walk through the field encouraging them every step of the way? I cannot say that he did not, but I am not sure because I did not ask him, but he sure was standing at the bottom of the hill greeting visitors and encouraging them to walk around and admire his crop. To say this 53 year old lady related to a field of blooming sunflowers is crazy, but it is true. I always say that flowers are my love language and they are. I paint them all the time. Sure I think they are pretty, but that isn’t why I paint them. I paint them because each flower has a story to tell if it just had a voice. None of them are perfect. They all have flaws like evidence of wounds inflicted by hungry insects. They go through so much to become what they become. They only have so much time to share their beauty with the world. Sometimes their worth is taken for granted. Sometimes they are admired on the plants they grow on, sometimes they are pruned and taken inside to be admired longer and at a closer distance, but unfortunately sometimes they do what everyone expects them to do, they bloom where they are planted and yet they are never even acknowledged or noticed. That makes me sad. So, I try to capture the beauty of flowers wherever I encounter them by taking their pictures or painting ones I remember. I hope to share their beauty with others that are too busy living their own lives to stop and appreciate their beauty or to stop and smell their aroma. I feel it is the least I can do for all the joy each and every one I come across brings to me.