Sightseer, Lost

The tumbleweed wanted to celebrate having survived the winter and entering spring as a fully mature tumbleweed. There was something absolutely awesome about being a tumbler, always rough and ready to take on anything – even the spring by rocking and rolling wherever the road led.

When he was just a sprout many months ago, when the days were short and the rains first fell, the tumbleweed had heard from last spring’s wildflowers that it was a custom for many visitors to make a special celebratory day out of trekking out in hiking boots and sun hats to visit the fields of poppies and lupines, blue dick and owl’s clover. They armed themselves with cameras, sunscreen and bottled water. The human visitors went nuts over the swaths of orange and yellow, blue, purple and white blossoms.

Now that this tumbleweed was a fully mature specimen, he thought he’d also take a trek out to visit the wildflowers, and maybe even gloat a bit that he’s survived all year long. So he headed out towards a far off spot of yellow and orange, and let the wind be his guide. He of course, really had no choice, for neither gps nor google maps, nor even a topographer could help him navigate. It was all up to the wind.

So it was here at this crossroads that I spotted him, my dear, dear tumbleweed. I had just come down the mountain after delighting in the eye popping colors of wildflowers in full bloom. I’d taken off my sun hat, but I had not put away my camera, for I’ve learned that delight can be around any turn.

This tumbleweed was stuck in the middle of three roads on a day with no wind. The wildflowers were so close and yet he was still. I felt I could sense him willing himself to move, either to the west or to the east, and then eventually north to the patch of yellow just shy of the trees, but not even a breeze gave him a jiggle.

After a moment of watching him and enjoying the landscape that he highlighted for me, I silently giggled. I of course realized that I cannot really think tumbleweed thoughts, and so I was not at all certain what he’d planned on doing that day. Perhaps he wanted to stand as a monument to contemplation, to patience, to the choice between two roads. Or perhaps he was just where he was supposed to be. In the place where he and I would cross paths.

Thank you tumbleweed!

We and our weeds are so much more than what we first appear to be. Please come back tomorrow for a new “Weed Image of the Day” and let me know which ones you like.

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