Finding Flowers
The morning has dawned, soft and full of yearning as I steal myself away into a moment of solitude. I walk around our neighbourhood, coffee in hand, while my thoughts move over this and that. With so much happening everywhere in the world all of the time, such fragments of stillness are silver treasures.
We went driving yesterday my daughter and I, in the midst of a morning soaked in grey. My spirits always rise when this shade dresses the day; giving breath to that internal dimension so suffocated by many of the New World’s spirits. As we sped further and further south down the freeway, there was no line between sea and sky just an endless mirroring of misty light.
The pensive morning gave external shape to my mood as we approached our journeys’s end. During the drive I had come to the end of my audio version of Father Patrick Desbois’ In Broad Daylight, read movingly by Stefan Rudnicki. I have deep respect for Father Desbois; a man of faith who has an unflinching understanding of human nature with all of its potential for wonder and darkness.
But I digress. No sooner had my thoughts recollected themselves than we had arrived at our destination; the Flower Fields of Carlsbad. Such has been the rain that we have experienced in recent months- not withstanding the heatwave of the last few days- that we have been longing to see the flowers which can bloom crazily after so much wet weather.
Carlsbad is a coastal city around eighty-six miles south of Los Angeles and thirty-five miles north of downtown town San Diego. It was incorporated in the 1950s and we’ve stayed there a couple of times. It has a lovely walkable downtown area and is a great place to spend time away from the craziness of LA. To my mind it’s a little like Laguna Beach in that respect.
The Flower Fields themselves combine a working flower ranch with a seasonal attraction. They date their origin back in the 1920s when a horticulturalist named Luther Gage introduced the ranunculus flower to the region. Now a century on, the Flower Fields are flourishing. There’s a dizzying fifty-five acre stretch of Tecolote ranunculus blooming in beautiful arrays of yellows, oranges, reds, pinks and purples as far as the eye can see, supplemented by a number of themed gardens, exhibitions, wagon rides and local food stalls.
During our time in Southern California, we’ve been to several of these local destinations in various places. I’m always struck by the gentle and rooted feel of them all which stands in such sharp contrast to the technicolored horror, scale and superficiality of the amusement parks. It’s impossible to express with sufficient subtlety, but somehow, in these smaller locales, there’s an element of contemporary American culture that is still very close to its agricultural beginnings in time past. It is this spirit which animates all such attractions- from both the Flower Fields we saw yesterday to the ubiquitous Pumpkin Patches that spring up every October and everything in between. It would be easy to dismiss it as kitsch, but it runs deeper than that.
We arrived at the Flower Fields early, to miss the crowds on the first day of Spring Break. As we arrived, I was struck by the friendliness of the staff and the genuine interest and care they took over all of the visitors. Many of them were retired volunteers giving of their time in that generous and community-minded way Americans can do so gracefully.
As we meandered around on our way to the ranunculus, we found ourselves charmed by the variety of carefully maintained gardens and exhibits. Our favourite was the sculpture garden with its profusion of gorgeous flowers, butterfly benches and glass sculptures. All beautifully laid out with just the right number of photo spots for social media enthusiasts. The ranunculus fields themselves were an absolute delight. I’m not sure I can recall a time where I saw flowers in such density on so vast a scale. Walking amidst the endless expanse of bright and beautiful colour was a true feast for the eyes and we tucked the visual memory away, having taken many photographs to help us to remember!
We flew back home much later, by some happy magic avoiding any of the mischief the freeway is capable of delivering. The grey had long since vanished and as we passed the ocean vista just by San Clemente, I saw that the azure blue had resumed its reign over sea and sky. I smiled at the beauty but longed, in my heart of hearts, for the soft mystery of the early mists of morning.
