If a person tried to see all the spectacular wildfire blooms of flowers around the globe, it could be become a lifelong preoccupation with beauty. . . although one that would (I think) pale beside a lifelong pursuit of loving God and people.
For instance, Alan and I were blessed to enjoy Japan’s cherry blossom festival this past April while visiting our son Michael’s family, but that’s because we spent an entire month with them.
Michael told us there’s a saying in Japan that you can only share the cherry blossoms with your most intimate friends . . . because the flowers come and go quickly and unpredictably, depending on the weather. You either have to live together or visit for a long time (like we did).
(Antelope Valley, California, when we visited)
The same thing proved true of our experience traveling around America. Even with the hope of catching some of our country’s most magnificent wildflower blooms, we missed most of them because we were too early or too late. And frankly, the bottom line was that my granddaughter Elanor made me promise to be home in time for her birthday . . . and her love is more beautiful than any hillside filled with flowers!
Besides the blue bonnets of Texas (which we missed), I was especially hopeful of catching the brilliant hills of Antelope Valley when the poppies bloom, especially after seeing photos from our “California Kids,” who had intentionally tracked the perfect time to visit in 2019, They caught this super bloom!
Theoretically, California’s poppies bloom between late February and early May, with the peak season usually between the middle of March and the beginning of May.
Aaron’s family went on April 28th in 2019, and it was dazzling!
We went on the sunny mid-morning of March 29, 2022—a month earlier but a week too late!
The warm weather earlier in the spring had caused riots of beauty just days before, but it was an unseasonably chilly 57° with 25 mph winds gusting up to 40 mph the morning we visited. The last of the fading flowers were scant and tightly closed.
But, what are you going to do? We weren’t there for a month, we were there for a day. So, we donned our winter coats and went hiking anyway!
I couldn’t help comparing the fields to our lives . . . fading, but still joyful!
The poppy is California’s state flower, and there used to be vast areas filled with flowers. During the 1700’s, sailors reported seeing “rivers of gold” streaming down the mountainsides for miles along the coast.
In the 1800’s, settlers told tales of the “golden hills” of California aflame with poppies. However, agricultural development ended most of the wildfire blooms, and now the biggest reserve is protected at Antelope Valley.
Happily, even though the poppies were mostly closed the morning we visited, the hills were still alive with color.
Obviously, both temperature and rainfall play huge roles in the abundance and timing of the poppies popping.
We were there in 2022, and it had been very dry that spring. The reservoirs were seriously low. All that changed in 2023, when flooding became the problem!
I’ve read that the displays were disappointing this spring (2024) too, despite being the second year with abundant rainfall.
Flowers are delicate and breathtakingly beautiful, but also unpredictable and ephemeral! They remind me of people . . . and maybe women especially! Like flowers, we need lots of fresh air, sunshine, warmth, and the water of kindness to bloom . . . and for most of us— it has to be in the springtime of our lives with perfect conditions to have magnificent blooms! 🙂
Alan and I came when it was cold and dry, and I felt like, “Hey, where have all the flowers gone?
How come we didn’t get to experience what our kids and grand children enjoyed?”
Well, I guess for many reasons. Like the cherry blossoms in Japan—you almost have to live somewhere to experience its unique beauties.
And, even then, there’s a delicate interplay between weather, climate, seasonal variations, and factors too subtle to understand.
Do you ever feel like your life isn’t blooming the way you’d like it to . . . or the way it used to? Do you ever wonder, “Hey, where have all the flowers gone?”
I think every life is a miracle. Every bloom is a miracle. Every life that blooms is a miracle. We may have great expectations and feel disappointed, but we need patience, because life can bloom again. What really makes life bloom is love, and love comes from God. I believe in miracles. Do you?
“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for
‘All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever’” (1 Peter 1:22-25).
(The photos of Antelope Valley are from the day we visited except those with Aaron’s family in them, used by their permission. The first photo is from a brochure about Antelope Valley.)
Summer Setting 