Ever since I was a little girl, briefly living in Texas, I’ve heard stories about the Texas wildflowers in the spring. I remember hearing how you can drive along any highway or country road and see the vivid blue bonnets; the red of the Indian paintbrush; and numerous others wildflowers that paint the countryside which can be blinding in its beauty.

Back in the late 60’s, while living in Texas (and picking me up along the way) my parents bought a watercolor much like the picture above that I still have and have dreamt of walking through these fields since I could remember.  The last time we lived in Texas, we had moved back north before spring time so I missed the legendary bloom. Last spring, I was filled with anticipation and had the exact spot picked out where I could take this long awaited walk.

Along comes the drought of north Texas. Which, as I learned, makes for a very poor wildflower bloom in spring time. What do I know about such things? I was used to getting 30-60 inches of snow each year, my lilacs never failed to bloom. I didn’t even know such a thing could happen! I waited each day for reports of fields filled with the blue bonnets in the picture I’d been looking at for close to 40 years.

Instead, what I got was a report from Rip’s sister that there was a patch of maybe a dozen or so of the blue wonders near a local Wal-Mart. WHAT? I drove out and missed them the first time so had to loop around Hwy 44 again so I could see the few, the proud, the Wichita Falls Bluebonnet. What a jip! Forty years of expectations down the tube in on fail swoop! I’ll try to keep the bitterness to a minimum here but believe me, I was pissed!

Spring is like that, I’ve come to learn. Expectations of what we wanted to do; see; or be after the long winter need to be laid to rest. Many of you had your annual gym memberships renewed with vigor in January and have already let the pass cards gather dust. Others have found frustration with not being where they had mapped out in their log books and aren’t squatting the 400+ pounds they were expecting to by now. Whatever the case may be, let it go. Enjoy what you have today and set new goals understanding that life’s turns will automatically adjust them and everything will be fine.

We’re heading to San Antonio this weekend and we may see some wildflowers along the way. It’d be nice, but I’ll enjoy the ride no matter what. Does that mean I’m lowering expectations? Nope. It means I’ll appreciate the find all the more.

Happy Spring!  jp