Sunflowers

Breakfast with Sunflowers

I never had a favorite flower because most of the time they made me sneeze. I loved my rose garden that I had once because they were all fairytale names & I have a fondness for purple roses because you rarely see them and when my dad would get me a flower it was a purple rose. When I was in college I had a friend who loved sunflowers because they were so "happy" - ugh. I needed a black flower I thought. My mom loves the white daisy. Simple and wild and she swears it has nothing to do with her growing up in the 60's. I had another friend who loved orchids and would tell me, you have to love the expensive ones so the guy has to spend more. This same friend got annoyed at me when I broke up with a guy in high school not because I broke his heart but because he had a nice truck.  Another friend loves tulips, I can see why, they are perfect, beautiful, and only show up for a short time to be admired. They are too delicate for me, one strong wind and their petals are gone and your left with a naked stem. Some people are okay with a naked stem but I have no desire to relate to that stress. Despite the "happy" comment I kept being drawn to the sunflower. It wasn't fancy nor did it have this magnificent fragrance but I loved the clean dark brown center with the large contrast outer yellow or shades of blood red that some varieties had.  This flower has grown on me. It can bring cheer, demonstrate great moods, lasts longer than a week in my vase, and can feed me if i run out of food and want to harvest the seeds. You get the picture. BBBuut... the reason I decided to write about this flower was because I was going over pictures and found my Italy pictures.  When I decided that I was going to love this flower I wanted to take a picture of the notorious sunflower fields in Tuscany. Every bus tour drive to and fro I looked for these magnificent fields. None... Then on our day to Rome I told Trever I had really wanted a picture of a sunflower field and was disappointed. Not a few minutes later, we passed this huge field of dried sticks with balls on top of them. Wait... those aren't sticks they are Sunflowers, DEAD ONES! Trever laughed and said I should have been more specific in my request. You thought that I would hold this huge grudge over this flower after that, but I laughed and thought it wasn't a "happy" flower - it was my black flower! This flower has earned the honor of being my favorite flower ever since! Although I do prefer the live version better!