Wildflowers

Yesterday, I was walking back from our family-owned produce market, Hyde Park Produce, when I heard someone playing music. I followed the sounds to Nichols Park, which I'd never walked through before, and found a band playing the blues while people casually stopped by to listen. I sat by a fountain surrounded by wild roses, and listened for a few moments, then went on my way.

Further into the park, I spotted a wildflower path, where a few people were weeding out the flowers and taking care of the space. I turned and decided to walk through the path. While I was wandering through, one of the women working told me that if I wanted them, I should take a bunch of the beautiful yellow wildflowers they were cutting, that they had too many.

I thanked her with surprise and sincere gratitude, and walked the rest of the way home with a huge bunch of flowers, stems, and leaves bundled in my arms, and a smile on my face. So many people stopped me and commented on my pretty flowers, and they smiled too. It was something I'd never experienced before quite like that.

When I got home, we cut the flowers out of all the brush, and put them in vases. Then we took the rest of the cuttings over to the compost pile in the community garden across the street from us. What a beautiful gift from nature, and from a kind stranger who must have intuited my love for wildflowers!