Dandelion

When I was a child I used to like drinking Dandelion & Burdock. Also, Sasparilla. There was, in fact, a whole range of soft, fizzy drinks: limeade, cherryade, any kind of -ade. Two different factories bottled locally. Now there's only Cola, Cola, Cola, anywhere in the world.

The dandelion, more than any other flower, is the flower of childhood – whether one rubs his nose yellow in its pollen, blows its seeds onto the breeze or has to eat the damn greens with mustard sauce.

That Vidalia, once exposed to air, began to rot.

That Picadilly, with consummate aplomb, finally published his picaresque autobiography.

That I once stood in a decrepit formica kitchen and prepared a dandelion salad for an ex-lover.

That it was August. Dusk. Once.

That Frank Leigh Dearie did write down »I Love You,« and mail it.

Dandelion dancetheater is a post-modern dance – theater company based in the San Francisco Bay Area under the direction of Kimiko and Eric Guthrie-Kupers that collides raw, emotionally-driven, athletic and lyrical movement
with theatrical scenes and gesture to explore the essence of what it is to be alive.

Most times, I think of weeding a yard. I can imagine those stupid garden tools, and my jeans being torn at the knees.

Some times, I think of blowing the dandelion seeds in peoples' faces.

Dandelions make a fine wine, and dandelion greens make a fine wilted salad. But best of all, dandelion flowers dot a field with a cheeriness that can't be replicated anywhere.