I've tried and failed to grow sunflowers for years. This past spring, I finally succeeded. And while it would be easy to credit a number of factors, including the rich new mulch or the luck of early summer rains, I actually credit something quite different.
Because when I put those zebra-striped mammoth sunflower seeds in the ground this past spring, I also did something I’ve never done before when planting. I prayed.
When I told my mom about this, she thought I was joking. I wasn't.
This past spring season was a strange one. The field surrounding my home that I’d spent years rewilding was completely torn up from having our septic system replaced the previous fall. Snow had come shortly thereafter, so I was only really able to assess the damage in March. The lush native grasses and wildflowers which had never easily taken hold on our bald mountainside, had been all but reduced to a mud pit.
In March, I also found out I was pregnant.
In those first few weeks (before happiness firmly took its hold), I was mostly feeling overwhelmed. Was I really ‘ready’ for this major life change? Was I equipped to be the kind of mother I wanted to be? And what about all of my interests, would they be cast aside as I became some hormonal balloon creature with diminished mental capacities?
Clearly, I’d been reading a lot of the wrong things, because five months later, I’m still not a balloon creature, although I do forget a lot of unimportant (and sometimes slightly more important) things.
Spring in the Southwest is always a time of stark transitions, and not necessarily ones you appreciate.
Yes, the are days get longer, but the snow also takes its sweet time to melt (especially at our home at 6,500 feet) and strong afternoon winds are an almost daily occurrence. Ski season is fading, the trails are a muddy mess, and it’s easy, between glimpses of gorgeous sunny days, to forget that the season will ever pass. Especially if every single day begins the way mine were: Exhausted and nauseous.
Opening the fridge had become a lesson in swallowing back sickness, smells of all kinds bothered me, and after a solid track record of caffeine consumption nearly every day since the age of 16, I suddenly couldn’t stand the smell or taste of coffee.
I was, like the field surrounding my home, very unsettled, and it’s appearance actually felt like the perfect metaphor for the mess that was my body and routines.
Gone was the girl who could read or write all morning with cup after cup of coffee.
Now I needed many more hours of sleep and would roll out of bed still groggy and immediately tasked with what felt like the impossible: Was there anything I could possibly eat that wouldn't make me feel like throwing up?
And then there was the field and gardens. We’d spent hours that month alone spreading seed and mulch (shoutout to my husband who did most of the heavy lifting), but everything still looked terrible.
Would anything actually grow? Had all our work been for nothing?
I bought seeds from the hardware store on a whim after our first ultrasound appointment.
The days were getting warmer and I was finally starting to turn a corner with the nausea. It was still there, but I was understanding how to manage it better: Smaller more frequent meals that were high in protein, starting from the moment I woke up. Instead of coffee, my breakfast became homemade mango lassis. Mango actually helps some women with early pregnancy nausea, so if you know a struggling mama, be sure to share the recipe at the end of this post!
I bought the usual spread of seeds I gravitate towards even though they rarely produce much: Echinacea, chamomile, and when I saw the sunflowers, lingered over them for a minute before tossing them in a the basket with a confident, why not?
I was happy and hopeful— because, as any new fretting mom will tell you, there's nothing like seeing your baby that first time. Not only does it make things feel real, but it’s also the beginning of any glimpse into who they might be.
And our baby was going to be a wild one.
That first ultrasound, sitting next to my husband in a low-light room with little twinkle lights, we saw a four-inch long wildling kicking and stretching and dancing so much it took the tech an extra minute to get his measurements.
“Showing off for Mom and Dad aren’t you,” she said. We beamed.
In that moment it clicked for me. Our baby was coming, and it was up to me to choose what kind of mom I wanted to be, starting now.
A day or two after the ultrasound, as the sun was setting over our mountaintop home, I went out into the new, still mostly bare garden beds with my sunflower seeds. I pressed my fingers into the soil to make one inch holes and dropped in one, two, three at a time. Then I closed the dirt over them and placing my palm on the cold soil, I asked the earth to make something beautiful. I had accepted at this point that our field might take years to come back, and that having a nice outdoor space possibly wasn’t in the cards for us this year.
But I was no longer looking just towards the immediate future.
I was thinking already of the next summer, when I’d be carrying my baby around our property. And I wanted him to grow up with the kind of mother who believed in whispering prayers to the soil, who had more patience with the seasons of the earth and her life. A mother, who believed in sunflowers.
Mango Lassi Recipe for New Mamas
Blend all the following ingredients and enjoy!
1 cup frozen mango
1 cup full-fat yogurt or kefir (unsweetened)
Generous sprinkle of cinnamon or pumpkin spice