Dandelion Junction

[Author's Note: This was my submission for the Geauga Park District's 26th Annual Nature Writing Contest. It received Honorable Mention.]

The strangest place I’ve ever seen a dandelion grow is out from between two bricks in a wall. At one time, a mud wasp must have built a nest in the groove, and a dandelion seed must have landed there, taken up root, and started to grow. And there it was when I found it, yellow face to the sun, ready to take on the world as if to say: “I’m in a weird place right now, but I really want to live!”

We call them “dandelions,” a word which we get from the French, which means “lion’s tooth,” named after the fact that the leaves have coarse teeth, much like its namesake. Other common names include blowball, priest’s-crown, doon-head-clock, witch’s gowan, and cankerwort. Scientists refer to the entire genus as Taraxacum, a word we get from Arabic, meaning “bitter herb.” If you’re at all familiar with Passover, there is a practice during which you eat bitter herbs to remind yourself of the bitterness of slavery. 

As we grow older, our views on dandelions change. As kids, they’re the perfect flower. They don’t have thorns, they smell nice, and nobody cares when we pick them. But they’re especially perfect because every once in a while, like magic, they turn to fluff balls that are fun to blow, scattering the seeds to the winds. As we get older, we soon realize them for what they are: weeds, especially weeds that have found the most ingenious way of propagating their species. We curse them as we pluck them, careful to not scatter those viral seeds to mar our perfect lawns with dots of yellow shame. We do this, that is, until we get even older and wiser and closer to nature. Then we see dandelions for what they really are: a source of nutrition, and possibly medicine.

You can eat their leaves and their flowers and their roots (all loaded with nutrients), and if you’re anything like my great uncle was, you could even press their petals into a wine, “packing,” as Ray Bradbury once put it, “all the joys of summer into a single bottle.” And while the following statements have not been evaluated by the FDA, dandelions are believed to have key health benefits: they can reduce inflammation, they can reduce blood sugar levels, they may lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and can help improve your skin, teeth, and bones. In a nutshell, the dandelion can help keep us young.

But dandelions are more than a lawn nuisance or a healthy snack for you and rabbits alike. They are a quick lesson in life. Look to the dandelion. Do what you must with your life now, before your sunny locks become snowy white. Don’t put anything important off, because it’s only a matter of time before you’re plucked, and poof, all your great somedays are scattered to the winds.

I like to look to the dandelion for advice. No matter how bad things get, the dandelion is still there, ready to grow, ready to scatter its seeds, hoping that the next generation of dandelions has it a little easier than this one. 

Whenever you’re stuck at home with no way to escape, no need for bitter roots, and you’re climbing the walls with no hope or comfort of freedom in sight, it’s good to remember the dandelion. Stand up from your perch, face the outside, and take on the world with the dandelion’s anthem: “I’m in a weird place right now, but I really want to live!”

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