The pickup truck pulled out from Oxxo. It was an older model with a single bench seat and a paint job that might have been blue in years past, but was now as grey a midwestern winter sky. 

A working truck, it was not unlike the ones I used to see in rural Illinois before pickups got fancy and became the ride that teenage boys coveted.

I couldn’t help but smile.

I rarely return home from a walk or drive without seeing something on the streets of Guadalajara that brings forth a smile. 

A long braid hanging far below the waist of the elderly woman selling garlic at the Wednesday market. Handmade felt dolls at the little bazar I discovered a few blocks from home. Paletas of more flavors than I’ve been able to try in the two years I’ve been here. A bakery with unbaked breads sitting outside, rising on a tray in the sun. 

Or, last week, a dirty and weathered pickup truck with a bed full of sunflowers.

“Sunflowers are one of Mexico’s gifts to the world,” I read in an article when I arrived home.

It made me wonder why I had never made them a gift to myself.

I’ve admired sunflowers on street corners since the day I arrived. Driving past, but never stopping. 

Handing over pesos for palm frond roses and the occasional mazapan, but always assuming the sunflowers were more pesos than I had within easy reach.

Never knowing the unique place that sunflowers held in the history of Mexico. And never realizing how much a vase full of sunflowers would brighten a room.

This week, like every week, I found many things to smile about as I traveled the streets.

But this week I also found something to smile about when I arrived home.

A vase full of sunflowers greeted me.