Learning from Lavender

On Saturday I saw a woman; well, two women actually. They were standing calf-deep in a spiral maze of Lavender. Now, I concede that seeing women standing in flower beds is not a rarity, even for a borderline hermit like me. I mean, I'm sure you saw one today; but these women were different. My Dad's birthday was the next day and my mother had been lobbying for quite a while to go to the Lavender Festival in Mona, Utah which falls on or around my Father's big day each year. The festival starts off with a 5k run which ends in a sort of "Floral Jamboree" held on a farm nestled between the mountains where anyone and everyone come to celebrate all things purple. The park, looking like the pleasant, yet somewhat derelict spawn of Wheeler Farm and the set of "A Knight's Tale" was crawling and teeming with excited and chatty women, towing their hyperactive children in one hand and their dazed and seemingly Valium-riddled husbands in the other. The festival boasted a "you make it, you take it" policy on their Lavender wreaths, bouquets, and bath salts -- each station outfitted with all the garden tools and purple foliage your heart could desire. To the north a neglected bluegrass band, and to the west (in my dad's opinion) what looked like the Elders' quorum's solution for those poor Novocaine-induced husbands - a sort of mock western ghost town complete with a High Noon shootout by Lavender-garbed buckaroos.

As I took a look around at the Lavender visage that lay before me, I did what any other self-respecting twenty-one year old man would do: I retreated behind my Aviator sunglasses and decided to tackle this monster on my own without the accompaniment of my parents who at the moment were very intrigued by the chamomile bushes. I snatched my Droid out of my pocket and took some photos of the pond, the stalks, and the blacksmith's shop. There was a fairy walking around nearby and everywhere you looked you could see overweight grandmas clutching their bouquets of Lavender stems. The sun was brutal as I made my way to the edge of the park, past the jousting range and through a mock-up sort of village.

On the far end of the festival I saw a sign: "The Lavender Labyrinth." The sign went on to describe how the labyrinth was used in many eastern cultures to symbolize one's path through life; completely unique from any other's and possessive of relaxing and soothing properties. I stared for a while at the maze, which was giving off a vibe reminiscent of the Salt Lake's "Spiral Jetty." Two women not too far off were gazing at the labyrinth intently; they looked like "true believers." Feeling somewhat tired and in need of some aroma therapy I started off into the maze.

I enjoyed the feeling of the Lavender on my calves and liked seeing the bees flying around pollinating the flowers. The two women were following me at their own speeds, stopping to pick a sprig and smell it, or putting their arms out to feel their fingers glide across the tops of the Lavender. Without really recognizing it I started to do it as well. Once I reached the center of the labyrinth I felt pretty relaxed and took a moment to enjoy my surroundings: rolling hills and blue skies, with buffalo romping around in a pen just a little bit further down the fence; a real Larry McMurtry dream. My two companions were making a steady orbit around my position as they made their way through the labyrinth and having reached me, stopped to chat a little.

"I've never made this walk when all the Lavender is in bloom," one said.

--"What, really?" I thought. "Why would you walk this at any other time? You'd just be walking circles in a bunch of weeds..."

"Me neither," the second replied. "The flowers are beautiful this year." For no apparent reason I decided to say something to them.

"It's nice out today, isn't it?" I said lamely. The first woman rounded in my direction.

"Oh you don't work here?" she answered. I looked around me. I was used to being mistaken as store employees on my mission because of my name tag but today I was just wearing some cargo shorts and a tweed hat.

"No..." I replied slowly.

"Oh well, did you find anything in the Labyrinth? You know what it means right?"

"Well, I read the sign..."

"Oh yeah, well great then. Because this is supposed to be like, your journey through life and you're supposed to like, find yourself and learn about your existence and..." She trailed off. Perhaps she realized how silly she sounded.

We chatted a minute about being in the center of the Labyrinth and I offered to let them take my place and enjoy the culmination of their path which they did after trying to convince me that I could stay longer if I required it. As I started walking backwards now through the maze I looked at the second, more quiet woman standing in the center. She had her hands crossed over her chest like she was lying in a casket and her eyes were closed. She was obviously finding Nirvana or something in the Lavender. As I stared at her I had a thought which all at once made me envy her. She's found herself. She knows where she's at and where she's going. Lavender or not, this woman knows who she is.

I took off my sunglasses and shed the Joe Cool attitude. As I stood in the maze I realized that like a schooner on the ocean I was lost, and had been since returning from my mission. Life had lost it's familiar color when I had come home and like a ship docked in the Panama Canal, I was in a way station of my life; always waiting for the next gate to open that would take me from mission to life, from life to college, and so on. True a path had been laid before my feet, but where it would lead me or how it would be, I couldn't say; life had become a real shot in the dark. And yet looking at this woman in the middle of the maze I could see that for at least one moment in time everything in her world had found it's center.

The day crept on and we had time to pull some flowers, raid the gift shop, and get sunburned and yet my mind always returned to the woman. What would it take? It had to be simple. For her, all it took was a lame maze of knee-high Lavender. I figured that while I was on the search I would start this blog to give my thoughts a sounding board and perhaps help me reach my center along the way.

As we pulled out of the festival I felt a tinge of gratitude for what the Lavender taught me that day. The journey for self starts simply and ends simply, until the winds blow or the stars twinkle and our lives change once more and demand that we enter the Labyrinth again, always in search for what matters most; ourselves.

Dear Reader, good luck.