Dandelions

   I hear much of the celebration of all the small things that grew so big. I feel the weight of a system of society that recognizes and praises the climb of the underdog, the success of the entrepreneur, the invisible start of an unknown stranger-whose beginning could not have predicted where she’s come to today. 

   I respect these stories, people becoming alive should be celebrated! But also,  I envy them.  I carry these stories with me, like a collection of things to remind me I am not enough as I am. I have inhaled ideas that tell me to snub the little things so long and forgotten to exhale the parts of this air that my soul can not live on. I walk though my day consciously and unconsciously flinching at the small of what I do, as if there is some shame in my existence as is. I feel the weight of needing to make the seed I carry grow into a monument of my human triumph.

    But lately my thoughts keep turning to the small things that stay small. In my yard grows the tenacious golden flowers also called dandelions. And this is the story of this plant, from a tiny seed, comes a green stem and then a flower, not so large, and if left alone this flower will one day turn white with little seeds that will float on a breeze, perhaps planting more of itself. Grownups do not come to admire this little plant or marvel at the many thin yellow petals that make her bloom a flower, and yet this flower (or weed you might call her), she is more at ease with herself then I am most days, she is not trying to be a rose, a maple tree, a mountain, or even the grass she grows among. She is only a dandelion, with a small beginning and a small end, but in this short existence she is fully herself.

And this is what I long for, to be content with sitting as I am, content to plant the small seed of my life and let it grow, be it only a single radish or carrot, be it only one flower, one clover, or a blade of grass, to stop coaxing it to be the things I keep saying it ought to be. One day I might even really understand that the small things were not so small, but I would be lying to myself if I said I really understood that today.

So here is to all the small starts and small finishes, may we all find peace in who we are and what we grow and feel enough in the love of our Creator.