wildflowers in hindsight

I have been lucky enough to spend a good amount of time in the wildflowers this Spring. I love how they take turns blooming and I have learned the often whimsical names of each. Approaching a blanket of color, I notice that when I get to the edge the flowers seem sparse. I continue towards the concentration of color, but no matter how far I walk, the spaces between flowers, the brown dirt, or green weeds are what stands out. I can’t seem to find a spot as lush as I thought it would be from afar. Playing with angles, trying to crop out the bare patches and skim the blooms that seem to spread in the distance, I can capture the optical illusion in a photo. I keep thinking how this is like so much of what I’ve experienced, goals that seem like they would ensure happiness when they are set, people who appear to be almost perfect, the belief that if I could just change or adjust or get this one thing, then everything will finally be easy and good.

Back in high school, my favorite teacher told me that happiness exists in moments. Experience is holistic; it’s good and bad and boring and disappointing. The bright spots are moments in a varied tapestry. With enough distance from any time in my life, the memories I share and the feeling that I’m left with are generally positive. I’ll recount the peak moments and hold a nostalgic and buoyed energy for a moment. Then when I begin to thoroughly recall the experience with more detail, I’ll laugh and sometimes modify my initial statement. There were happy moments, but they weren’t the majority.

Approaching the field, the flowers are lush and abundant. Looking back from a distance, the colors dominate the view. In the middle, in the place I thought it would be, the landscape is complex and varied. I can never seem to get ‘there,’ to what I thought it was going to be, to my fantasy of it. More and more lately, when I think about my life, my goals, my values, I come back to Gertrude Stein’s, ‘there is no there there.’ On the eve of my 35th birthday, I can say I’m closer to accepting life as it is, more aware of my expectations being what dampens and frustrates, more in tune with the complexity of every person, every period, every place, and more forgiving. Nothing is quite how I thought it would be, but it’s lovely in it’s own right. Even if sometimes only in moments or in hindsight.