Pink Naked Lady Joy

…you went there, didn’t ya? ;)

Tears came to my eyes and I whooped out loud in celebration in the same moment, I pulled my truck over to the side of the road and fumbled for my camera without taking my eyes off this : 

A newly bloomed Pink Naked Lady, just one single stem with four blossoms. It’s not the only one of these flowers to bloom in the last few days of July, but this one, this specific one? Y’all, this one is a familiar friend I thought was now only a memory. 

Let me tell you a story? Of course why else are you here, right? 

This next photo I made the day before I found the above blooms. 

These Pink Naked Lady flowers are a new bloom for the season here at the end of July. When I spotted them they made me so happy, as this time of year—while still lush—makes me start feeling the ever so slight tip over from blooming into fading. There are plenty of summer days left, yet the growing season has begun that slow slide when things begin to fade and harvest looms closer. Finding these fresh blooms stoked my fire of love for the flowers and grasses, the full to bursting fields—all still vibrant and abundant.

In addition to being a glory of the season I aim to enjoy to the fullest, these pretty pink flowers also bring to mind a house I used to pass on my way to town, years ago.

It was an old place, rundown with the fences leaning, the yard grown up, but still occupied as far as I could tell. There was a car there from time to time, once in a while the overgrown yard would be mowed, yet I never actually saw anyone. Oh y’all know I had my imaginings—maybe  widowed older person desperately clinging to the family home filled with memories while a family member checked in, tended the yard a little, brought groceries or took them to town now and then… whatever the case was, as time went by, the car stopped showing up, the grass grew even wilder and the house took on an abandoned appearance until it was clear nobody lived there anymore. Flowers still bloomed along the the collapsing fence by the roadside, proof that nature will carry on without our help.

Then one day I saw the fence flattened, the tall grass askew and a bulldozer in the yard. The next time I drove by—which wasn’t long after because I’m insatiably curious—the house was gone, the fence gone, even the yard was gone. There was nothing to show there had ever been a house there—just roughed up dirt. The place was once again a part of the surrounding fields, corn grew there the next season. 

You know what else grew there? 

Along the edge of the cornfield in the grasses next to the roadside?  

Three Pink Naked Lady Flowers! 

I was thrilled to see them and enjoyed seeing them every summer for another few years until the land was sold and industry moved in. The homestead turned field is now a solar farm that stretches for several acres next to a new factory. I no longer saw the pink flowers in the summertime, in fact, I stopped taking that road very often as it became busier and I prefer less busy roads. Life’s about changing, nothing ever stays the same, right? 

So this week when I saw the first of the Pink Ladies in several places, I stopped to take the above new pictures in appreciation and memory. I remembered the little house, the flowers…I wondered anew about the stories that had been lived there and I enjoyed the thought that while that homestead is gone maybe somebody somewhere remembers. I do. 

I am also reminded that Summer is still here. Summer is still in full swing and this slow slide towards harvest is as much a part of Summer as the blooming—and things are still blooming! 

Still, a melancholy flickers at the edges and sometimes I have to focus a bit harder to appreciate the here and now without being prematurely wistful. That’s what these Pink Ladies did for me—renewed my appreciation for the moment. 

It’s All Beauty. 

On that note, in a tribute of sorts after I saw this year’s Pink Naked Lady Flowers, I drove along the road where the farmhouse used to stand, past the factory, by the solar farm…AND THERE IT WAS, Y’ALL—

THERE. IT. WAS. 

One single stem with four newly opening pink blossoms. (Close up photo at the top of this page)

The Land Remembers—and So Do I.

Is there something heartwarming like the farmhouse and pink ladies in your memory? Something sweet, poignant, life affirming? I hope you think about it and it warms your heart anew. I’d love to hear about it, or anything else that brought you joy lately, if you want to share with me in the comments :)