Love of Flowers, History, and Place; Blog Post #7

Roadside flower picking; what’s going on?!

Hello Dear Readers;

The LOVE sign calls to me; it frightens me and gets me seriously fired up. On this day I was heading home from a Los Angeles, CA work trip. Blasting along just beyond Payson Arizona I saw a man picking flowers beside the road. That voice, the voice that originally inspired me to buy this used thrift store sign in the first place, spoke; ‘Andrew, stop and ask this man to take his picture while he picks the flowers’. Now this call to action is often hard duty. I feel compelled, and I also feel socially awkward. This voice demands of me that I show up in the world in a big way. I say to myself; “I want this beautiful photo and… what if I am being invasive”? I whipped a u turn and went back. I felt adrenalized and ecstatic both. I jumped out of my truck just in time as the man was getting back into his car; I asked the man; “I saw you picking flowers and I’d like to take your photograph. I’ll show you why in a moment”. He said okay. My deep sincerity, and the value in my mission, cuts quickly through much resistance. I brought out the LOVE sign and explained that I am writing a blog about love. And here is where the real and the grit of life met ideas and fantasy. If I ever thought this would be easy?! I am not only writing about love, I am engaging in love. I am engaging in all that love is; some are hostile. Some folks have quick negative vitriol that pours forth. Some have said no and spoken with high negativity about love in general. We will get to those blogs in the fullness of time.

This man thanked me for stopping; his 9 year old daughter appeared from behind their Honda with Washington plates, also holding sunflowers picked from the roadside verge. “I am glad you stopped, we are on our way to my wife’s funeral. She and I came here years ago to hike, there weren’t flowers like this then…” He reached out and touched my arm. Oh my god! And so dear reader you can see the photograph I made. Here is a beautiful 9 year old child and her father, holding the sunflowers they have picked, symbolic of a time this man and his now deceased young wife spent in the mountains of Arizona. I was floored. I know this can happen. It happens all the time as I engage in love. People cry. People die. People move on… My goal is to travel the untrod road in search of the real. And did I ever find it. I found myself. I found my fear of interfering and I bested it. This man and his daughter were brought to near tears with their lovely bunches in hand, a stranger acknowledging their loss and joining them for a moment in their grief. Far from an intrusion, my presence was a welcome connection in the great tapestry of life.

This woman was loved; she and this man came together and made this child. He was engaged in celebrating her in her passing. And there was his daughter, eyes wet and full, smiling at being seen in her grief, near tears at the loss of her mother, and, loving the flowers. She gazed at them in her deliverance. I didn’t get more detail. It felt right to be on my way. But the moment stays with me. I allowed engagement in my own heart. I allowed the space for the love this man held for his wife and for his daughter and for the mountains and for the sunflowers he had picked. I stopped my day for a moment and was rewarded with the privilege of witnessing grief.

Love is hard. It brings us together, and it can hold us in thrall for decades after the love has passed. Sometimes the love itself never passes. I can only guess at this man and his daughter’s feeling. In my visceral seeing of their two faces I can imagine that there was deep love. Perhaps he is relieved? Perhaps she was difficult? Perhaps he will cry nightly for years. Perhaps his daughter will meet an important mentor in his future wife? The point is that love rocks our world and touching it brings us closer to the sun, closer to the smell of pollen, closer to ourselves.

To me the universe spoke a positive, affirmative measure of support for my project. Not only was I welcomed to be there in that moment, I aided grief in the world. I held space for their loss, and for loss in general.

Thank you,

Andrew Hunt