Picking Wildflowers

Picking wildflowers was always a big No-No when I was a kid. I knew that it meant they’d die because I picked them, but I never really understood why picking them was off limits.

Why was it wrong?

What about the joy it would bring to someone who saw vibrant rainbow of color on the kitchen table? Doesn’t that matter?

And what about the other endless wildflowers spread throughout the forest? Would picking a few really upset the forest ecosystem?

I’m 44. Something that was repeated to me as a kid shouldn’t hold the same heavy weight three decades later. And yet, as I hesitantly leaned down to pick the first wildflower today, I felt shame. Like I was doing something morally wrong. I actually looked around me to see if someone was watching. (No one was.)

Then with a sudden and unexpected wave of freedom, I realized that I’m no longer a child. I’m an adult. I can pick wildflowers. I don’t have to live under the shame I carried as a kid.

And so I cast off that shame and picked with abandon. Every color of wildflower I could find.