I dandelion

Be clear! I only know this because someone told me. At Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on the East Coast, when someone speaks to the group, they are thanked for sharing. In those same meetings on the West Coast, they are thanked for their share. Verbs and nouns. Nouns and verbs. I lean toward verbs.

Now, the same person who told me that AA stuff, when I shared my language preference, said, “What about a dandelion?” And I thought, what a silly goose.

I dandelion. I dandelion through the day. Today, yesterday, 62 years ago. Think about it. Dandelioning is standing up straight in the middle of the deep green grass of a lawn. Just there, to be blown a smidge this way and that, the late morning breeze – left, kid, right, kid. Join in the haha. No resistance. No preference. Just leaning in the sun. Dandelioning is shining its little light out into the day. Its little light of its. Dandelioning is being there for a dog to pee freely on. For a kitty to slink up and sniff. For an 11-year old to come along and pick – along with some of its sisters – and run home and find a little vase to suit a little world, to gaze at, eyes so filled with wonder and delight, “Mom, see my flowers. They’re so beautiful.”

All this dandelioning. A flower flowering. Just like the kid, flowering along through her life. Maybe Shakespeare says, “I dandelion, therefore I am.” Perhaps he was too old for that. There’s share and there’s sharing. There’s flowers and there’s flowering. There’s a dandelion, of course. It’s just over there.

That’s where I see it dandelioning.