the sunflower quest (the background)

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It’s what sunflowers do.” – Helen Keller

Call me strange, but I love sunflowers. I have a sunflower t-shirt…

My bathroom is decorated with a few sunflower items…

My boyfriend planted sunflowers in the yard just for me…

And I even have a sunflower tattoo on my ankle…

I once took a class to learn how to make mosaics and stained glass, and the projects I chose to create were – you guessed it – sunflowers.

And the list goes on of things I have collected that have sunflowers on them.

Whenever I see a sunflower as I am driving around, even if it is just a single lone flower, I point it out to whoever happens to be the lucky one in the car with me. If I am the only one in the car, well then, I point it out to myself.

I’m not sure when my obsession with sunflowers started. I do know though, that it was long before my 30th birthday. Because it was on my 30th birthday that I got my tattoo. At the time, my tattoo had three leaves on the stem to symbolize my thirty years. Then for my 40th birthday, I added a fourth leaf, for that decade. (I won’t mention when that was.) And perhaps some day, far, far away, I will add a fifth leaf.

I’m not exactly sure why I have an obsession with sunflowers. Perhaps it is because the flowers remind me of the bright sunshine and of being outdoors. Perhaps it is because yellow is certainly a cheerful and happy color. Or perhaps it is because the flowers stand so tall and proud.

I don’t eat sunflower seeds that often, but I have tried chocolate-covered sunflower seeds. Those are tasty. And my latest treat is sunflower seed butter, instead of peanut butter, and jelly sandwiches.

Even my friends and boyfriend know that I like sunflowers, and so I get birthday and other cards from them decorated with the flower.

(the top two cards have artwork by Georgia O’Keefe)

So, needless to say, when I was in Europe several years ago, on my five-month solo journey, I had a quest. A quest to find some large and vast sunflower fields. A quest so that in these fields I could stand and be surrounded by the beauty and solidness and strength of these flowers.

Stay tuned to see if my sunflower quest was a success…

Sweet Travels!

All Photos (and some artwork) by Debby