Slow for flowers.

If you make your way west in Petaluma, California and find yourself on Roblar Road, you’ll see a sign that says “flowers around bend.” Go a little further and you’ll see another sign urging, “slow for flowers.”

I’ve seen these signs probably forty times on my repetitive journeys to the ocean. I make a trip to the ocean every few months or more to plop my butt on the beach, touch icy Pacific water, and put myself in front of something that’ll make me feel small in the best and most grounding way.

I’ve been doing it for years, and it’s one of the few things I know will without fail, fill me to the brim. So this last weekend, I gave my Sunday morning to the well-worn twists and turns of Highway 1 to drink coffee on the cold sand.

On the way there, I spotted these familiar signs: “flowers around bend” and “slow for flowers.”

They eventually lead to a tiny unmanned stand promising “seasonal flowers and bouquets picked fresh daily.” Every time I drive by this shop, I tell myself I should stop and check it out but then this habit loop commences: I think, I take note, and I keep driving—always finding some reasonable excuse of tight travel time, not wanting to spend money on something as frivolous as flowers, or if I’ve already passed the stand, the risk of trying to turn around on a narrow country road.

I’m not good at stopping for beautiful things the first time.

Or the second.

Or the third.

Or the fifteenth apparently.

On Petaluma roads and in life, I’m usually going too fast to recognize the opportunity of something delightful, and if I do, I’m usually too in my head to give any breathing room for the spontaneity to act on them. I pile up an exhaustive amount of “next times” when sweet chances interrupt my pre-planned routes, and this time was no different. I cruised on by loosely vowing to check it out on my way back from the water later that day.

But then, this question came through the side door of my thoughts: “Aren’t you sick of wondering?”

For years (years!), I had been wondering what this place was in the dozens of times I passed it, but because it was such a seemingly insignificant thing, I dismissed it again and again.

The intrigue hadn’t left. The desire hadn’t dissipated. I still perked up every time I passed that first “flowers around bend” sign. And yet, I denied myself the gift of fulfilling that wondering.

The reasons behind why is something I’ll decipher over time, but suffice it to say, this past weekend, I finally stopped at this dumb little stand—a decision years in the making.

The thing was, however, I had to talk myself into making a U-turn to do it. I had already driven by it—per my habit. But as the stand grew smaller in my rearview, the wondering won out. Instead of swallowing the curiosity, I let myself respond to it even though it required that I endured the inconvenience of a U-turn.

I turned around, I drove back, and I loved what I found.

More than the sweetness I enjoyed in selecting a handful of coastal blooms to take home (something I could’ve been delighting in for years had I stopped earlier), the gift of that U-turn is what resonated from this pitstop. I could’ve kept driving like I did a thousand times before, but I doubled back. I let myself change my mind even when the opportunity was seemingly gone.

This is not something I usually do.

I’m one to steamroll ahead, move on, look forward, but I’m learning there’s no shame in backtracking and that some things are worth deviating from the pre-mapped route, the preconceived plan, and the original intentions set.

I’d like to say I’ll stop for beautiful things the first time more often, but I know myself. I’m likely to keep missing them.

However, what I’m finding is while there’s wisdom in acknowledging a good thing when it crosses your path initially, there’s an even more evolved maturity in realizing an opportunity that’s passed you by and making a safe U-turn to seize it.