Sunflower Field

In the age of COVID it’s easy to feel trapped inside whether that’s physically, mentally, or emotionally. It’s easy to feel like adventures and spontaneous trips are a thing of the past. No more planning and saving to go across the country or to a brand new one.

It’s easy to feel stuck.

Before the pandemic, I had plans to go to Ireland in the fall. Something I’ve wanted to do for years. It’s hard to have a daydream on the verge of becoming reality stripped away from you for reasons you would have never predicted. It sucks.

While I want the world to get better and to be better, I still grieve for those lost adventures this year. While I know this is what has to be done, I still found myself throwing a bit of a pity party.

So I let myself grieve and then I moved on. I started planning again and looking for adventures. Small adventures, but adventures all the same that I could do nearby. Places I knew would be safe, but also give me something to look forward to. Maybe if I started looking locally I’d start to appreciate where I was and discover hidden gems I might not have found otherwise.

There was one area I knew I wanted to go to though. I had been waiting 2 ½ years to go to this mysterious sunflower field about an hour away from me. It only blooms for a short time so there’s a small window of when you can visit and see it in its full glory.

The first time I heard of it was after dating my boyfriend for about a year and hearing his family talk about it and showing me photos. By that time the flowers were already gone (I missed it by a month - it was infuriating). So we decided next year will be my year to see these flowers.

The next year it rained. And rained....and rained.

Because of the excess amount of god’s tears (from laughter, I suppose), the flowers did not grow so I was once again cheated from this one small piece of sunshine.

This year though - despite the pandemic, despite my anxiety at an all time high, despite how awful and drained and done I was with this year and this life - I was going to finally see a field of my favorite flowers.

And I did. The universe was still teasing me with rain on and off during our drive there. I kid you not I saw a funnel cloud that for a split moment I felt was a tornado in the distance. This seemed to be like a bad omen. We had already been rained out by the weekend and were driving an hour on a Monday night after work to see this field and I was staring straight into the eye of the storm.

But we made it fun. We got some fast food and waited the storm out. And the sun eventually showed itself again before deciding to set so we walked through the fields at twilight. The ominous clouds actually made for an interesting backdrop on photos. The air was cool - almost like autumn had popped in for a surprise visit.

We walked through mud and took a thousand photos (honestly none of the ones of us came out well - seriously about 50 photos completely unusable). Yet somehow it didn't matter as much as it normally would have. We kind of got to lose ourselves to the moment and feel like kids jumping through puddles and playing in mud - literally taking the time to smell the flowers.

All this to say, even in times where it feels like you've lost so much. In times where the tunnel seems to get darker with no end in sight. Sometimes you find moments of sunlight. You still find little adventures and time to smile and lose yourself to a moment - no matter how brief.