25 Sep 2025 2 min read Field Notes

A Season in Bloom

I didn’t always notice the bloom. Now I wait for it like a promise.

Photo by S. Rolling

Years ago, spring was something I moved through on the way to somewhere else. I was chasing miles, elevation, the next overlook, the next summit. The trail itself held my attention. Everything beside it blurred into scenery.

I wasn't looking for wildflowers. If I saw them at all, they were just flashes of color at the edge of my vision. Then life changed, not all at once, it rarely does.

Pain has a way of slowing you down, whether you agree to it or not. Like something being taken away. Every shortened hike, the longer rests, every early exit was another small surrender. Then, an unexpected thing happened...

I started noticing the flowers.

Lupines rising in quiet clusters where I could have sworn there was only dry grass a few weeks before. California poppies pushing through hard ground with a confidence that seemed entirely undeserved.

None of them were trying to be seen.

They simply arrived when it was their season.

There is something comforting about that. The bloom doesn't hurry because someone is watching. It doesn't bloom for approval, and it doesn't apologize for how brief it will be. It just becomes exactly what it is for as long as it can.

These days I find myself waiting for spring in a different way.

Not because I have a list of hikes to complete, but because I know the flowers will return. I know there will be another morning when I round a bend and find a hillside transformed almost overnight.

Every year feels like a quiet promise kept.