Let’s talk about sunflowers!
The fact that I may not have an audience here makes me feel like I can share anything and everything. So here goes nothing!
For the past few days, I have been exploring a talk-to-strangers site. I know it sounds suspicious, dangerous, and whatnot, but to defend myself I must tell you that you do meet some nice people there. Yesterday, while I was exploring this site again, out of nowhere the word ‘sunflower’ popped up in my head and I kept it as my username. It was not planned and completely random. I connected to a really nice girl on that particular website and she complimented me on my username. Like she said that ‘Rose’ sounds cheesy but ‘Sunflower’ sounds all happy and cheerful. Now, right there I did not think about anything before having that username but it was the first thing she noticed and it made her think about it. After having a nice conversation with her, I connected with another stranger who was looking forward to meeting interesting people. I have to tell you that I am not an interesting person. I am like the most boring person you will ever meet. But we are not here to talk about me so we will skip this conversation and we will get back to our main topic. Now, he told me that my username reminded him of the song ‘Sunflower.’
And you’ll be left in the dust
Unless I stuck by ya
You’re the sunflower
I think your love would be too much
Or you’ll be left in the dust
Unless I stuck by ya
You’re the sunflower
You’re the sunflower
This is an excerpt from the song. Though the song is catchy, it still lacks meaning. I felt like it did not do justice to this beautiful flower. We can go all deep and deep to find meaning but the lyrics still did not work out for me.
But we know that this flower is so much more than just one song right? Now, I did some research to know more about Sunflowers. Sunflower plants need abundant of sunlight and air but still are very easy to culture and can be grown in conditions where other plants may not. This makes me realize that you can be demanding and at the same time easy to approach (words of wisdom you know).
Isn’t it peculiar how these casual things have so many interesting facts related to them? I mean, of course, you can find everything on the internet but the fact that we do not take time to know about such things. As we all must know that sunflowers tend to reposition themselves to face the sun and hence the name. Trying to sound more intelligent, sunflower’s genus, Helianthus, is rooted in two Greek words — “helios” meaning sun and “anthos” meaning flower. But that is not all. Let me tell you about Greek mythology related to this flower. Though this myth has various versions as these things go way back in history and we do not have any concrete proof, here is one version of it:
It all started with a water nymph named Clytie and the God of the sun, Apollo. Clytie fell in love with Apollo who in turn was in love with someone else (drama alert!). As a matter of fact, Apollo never noticed Clytie, it was one-sided, unreciprocated love and soon Clytie realized that. And you know how these love stories always end in depression. Clytie got depressed, she stopped eating and drinking. She just stared forlornly at the sky watching Apollo pass by. It is said that she turned into a sunflower plant after some time. How sad! Such a beautiful flower with an extremely sad story. And there is this sunflower keeping the story alive. None of it may be true, it can all be a myth but why does it matter as long as it makes us feel something.
There is a lot more to this flower but let us not bore our imaginary audience. Ending this article with a cliche quote:
“If roses tried to be sunflowers, they would lose their beauty; and if sunflowers tried to be roses, they would lose their strength.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo
