What Dreams May Come

I was going for strawberries. “They start in early April,” the Internet said after a brief “U-pick Southwest Florida” Google search. If they start in early April, I figured two weeks into the month would be prime strawberry picking–the perfect kind of weekend adventure I’ve been craving with my kids. We’d get up early on Sunday–let Brett sleep in–head to the magical field of strawberries we didn’t realize existed only minutes from our home and we’d pick under the golden rays of not-too-hot-just-right sun until our heart’s content–testing the biggest ripest berries right there in the field. Strawberry pie would, of course, follow as would smoothies and shortcakes and an attempt at Domestic Bucket List Item #32–homemade jam. “We’ll pick some for the neighbors too,” I told myself as the IDEA FOR FUN THING TO DO snowballed in my brain, getting more specific with each minute, heightening my excitement from baseline Already Childlike to Even More Childlike. This is what I do. Every time. And, more often than not, this is how it turns out…

Different.

Little Eager Beaver called the magical field of strawberries Saturday evening to properly prepare for our dreamy Sunday visions.

“Hey, I live in Naples and can’t believe I’ve never checked you guys out. I’m bringing my kids to pick strawberries tomorrow morning, and I–”

“Aw m’am, I’m sorry, but our strawberry season is over,” the woman informed–like detonating a bomb. “Our fields are all picked.”

Poof. Goodbye dreamy Sunday vision. I guess Google wasn’t kidding around with that “very brief picking season” stuff.

“Yeah,” the woman continued, “we’re all picked out and closing for the summer soon. Just the U-pick flower field and–”

“Wait–what?” I interrupted. Because for a minute there I thought she said U-PICK FLOWER FIELD.

“We’ve still got our sunflower and snapdragon fields,” she went on. “You can cut whatever you want from those if you want.”

Sweet mother of snapdragon dreams, you mean to tell me there’s a field of flowers close by we can pick from? We can twirl in? We can frolic and skip and sing THE HILLS ARE ALIVE while we pick, while we twirl, while we sing to the botanical gods of goodness who made this happen?

“KIDS! KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDS! GET IN THE CAR! GRAB A FLOWER-PICKIN’ BASKET AND GET IN THE FREAKING CAR!”

And that’s the thing I keep learning. Just because the thing we dreamed up didn’t happen doesn’t mean we don’t get what we want. And it’s less (okay nothing) about that Bible-store plaque “If God closes a door, he opens a window” stuff and more about the inevitable hilarity of life and our reaction to it.

We didn’t get our strawberries. But there’s more than one way to make homemade jam, and this weekend’s preserves looked a little more…colorful.

…a little garden tour for you.

Happy dance. Happy twirl.

Prettiest cup my cup holder ever did see.

We didn’t make pie, but we did bake up some flower crowns.

Dream up all the things as childish as those dreams may be. Throw those little dream boomerangs out into the universe. Just know they might come back to you in a different way than you expected.

Either way…you still get to make a pretty bouquet of what returns.

Happy Happy Monday.