Lens Zen! Yo, it's sunflower season, Mr. White
Lens Zen is an additional feature of Stay Curious. Photography is another one of my creative crafts; I find it meditative, fun, and another outlet for expression. I especially love the idea of photography as an antidote to distraction and despair. Every other week I’ll share some captures/short writing to, I hope, add a bit of lift to your day.
Enjoy!
During the summer of 2020 I spent a lot of time exploring my local surroundings. One of the places I discovered was Verrill Farm, a working agriculture farm just outside of Concord, Massachusetts. Their sunflower field was open during limited times. You could purchase a ticket for a nominal fee that also entitled you to pick up to five sunflowers to take home. It felt like one of the easiest, stress-free experiences available at the time—distancing included! It is not an exaggeration to say that it is just what my soul needed at the time: the peace and tranquility of roaming up and down rows and rows of these beautiful flowers, nothing but the sounds of birds and bees feasting on this pop-up all you can eat buffet. The terrible times hushed and forgotten for a little while at least.
Up until that time when I thought about sunflowers I guessed California, Texas, probably Mexico. With it’s never-a-dull-moment climate that can give you snow in April, New England is not a region I would bet on being able to carry these tall, lanky, cheerful floral cyclops. Wrong! Thanks to a ton of horticultural Frankensteining numerous varieties of sunflowers thrive in farms, fields, and regular yards all over the place.
I’ve come back to Verrill Farm every year since that first visit. It’s turned into a late-summer ritual that I look forward to, a way to mark the start of a bend in the seasonal road. And besides, it’s impossible to stay gloomy walking through corridors lined with sunshine, built on hope.
Did you smell them? I grew some sunflowers a few years ago and the smell was intoxicatingly delicious - I don't know if it was the variety I grew or if they are all heavenly scented? Love your late summer ritual!
One of the most photogenic flowers. Colors, textures, personalities. They gave it all!