How Dandelions Taught Me to Look at the World Differently

Here’s a funny one I heard the other day…..It’s Spring!….hahahahhahahahha….ugh.
Well, at least the calendar says so…so there is that.
Anyway, I was thinking about the upcoming season…you know what to plant, what to paint, the devil rabbits in the backyard, etc, etc and it got me thinking about something I wrote um teen years ago. (Um teen is a term for old people to use when they can’t really remember when it was, they just know it was too long ago to recall). I do however, have the mental retention to remember where I kept said writings (some of them ramblings) and I wanted to share it again, just in time for Spring. For dramatic effect/affect (grammar nazis?)I will italicize my previous writing…..

“It’s amazing how something so simple can create a moment of realization than can help to change your life, and the way you look at the world around you. I was headed home one late, summer afternoon and as I rounded the corner of Ash Street, I was immediately taken by a glowing field of dandelions. Almost instantly, I was a child again, picking those bright yellow flowers, stuffing them into carefully constructed paper “May Baskets”, sneaking up on the neighbor’s porch, hanging my “gift” on the door handle, ringing the bell and running for my life to try and not be seen. As I recalled that May 1st tradition, I laughed to myself, and then a sudden realization came over me….something had changed. It was as if I awoke one morning a grown up, and those bright, yellow flowers had become pesky weeds, poking their heads up to ruin my perfectly green lawn. How and when did this happen, and more importantly, how did I miss it? The dandelions certainly hadn’t changed. It was an “ah ha” moment….”

What that day, and those dandelions taught me was that not everything is so black and white. There are many (dare I say 50..wink, wink)shades of grey. Everything isn’t always what you see or what you think. People aren’t always what they seem. There are usually 3 sides to a story. What it really taught me was to stop for a minute and “consider”, not to be quick to judge, to accept things and people who are different, to open my mind to any possibilities that life offers. Something all of us should strive for.

So put away your weed killer (if the snow really ever melts and you actually see a weed) and enjoy a little dandelion or two……

Happy Spring
xo
Greg