Yellow Sunflowers to Yellow rubber rabbit brush to Raging Idaho Falls
As we left Utah, verdant hills contrasted with yellow rubber rabbit bushes, a relative of sage brushes. Miles after, along 260 north in Utah, shoulder patches of common golden sunflowers were on the highway shoulders.
Yellow to yellow seem to be the color pattern, as the sun was giving us its radiant heat’s peak.
By Aurora a field of common sunflowers – so majestic, and along Veterans Memorial Highway.
Malad City is where the Visitor Information Center, then in Stone is the Devil City Reservoir, where rvs are parked with trailers transporting recreational boats.
Bear River City is where corn stalks are getting ready for harvest. I was informed that the corn has to reach a certain amount of moisture before they are harvested as feed, all still in Utah.
As we left Utah, in intense heat of 100 F travel, we were anticipating cooler Idaho Falls.
There, I would meet my long time friend, Sylvia whom I got quite close during an interethnic relations training on leadership development, 29 years ago. We spent sessions at my kitchen table with two other young Asian women, wanting to make a difference, during the height of Black- Korean conflict in 1992.
I have not seen her for 29 years. Yet, we bonded soul to soul, sharing our deepest heartfelt experiences of discovery about human interactions, how respect is valued by young Americans that she met abroad in her work assignments, how I worked with diverse staff in the workplace and in professional associations, how we both love to travel, and the lessons we learned in transcending grief and each of our own losses of parents and sister.
I did not realize how convergent themes of grief and loss are central to our lives including the question on how do we better serve humanity’s common good from where we are living right now?
Our dinner turned to an early stroll by the Idaho Falls and the Japanese Friendship Garden. It turned out to be a magical soul to soul renewal the night before as the next morning, and how we evolved with more travels before the pandemic, including a story of nearly 800 kilometers and 36 days of Camino pilgrimage done by my husband in 2019, interactions with our respective neighbors – she getting supplied with organic cage free eggs by a neighbor in Idaho, and me, pastries from Republique in California, including volunteerism we did in medical missions, moved by parallel social needs in our lives.
We felt like kids as we took more time to reminisce, to take more photos and even rode the swing for minutes.
Thank you Sylvia for driving 4 hours to Idaho Falls, while it took us 6 hours to reach, from Capitol Reef.
We came to a conclusion that it was meant to be – coordinated in barely 48 hours, using Facebook, with both sides choosing to meet.
It was meant to be a magical soul to soul reunion!
