They’re actually quite beautiful really, dandelions.
Their bright yellow flowers signal the greening of the world and spring. Most people consider dandelions an ugly weed, but they are quite lovely. They are symbols of rebirth and of childhood. The first flower I picked for my mom was a dandelion; I picked five or six and she put them in a glass of water; she was so pleased with me for thinking of her.
I suppose we all picked dandelions for our moms when we were kids. We didn’t know or care they were weeds then. In our innocence we saw only the beauty in their bright, yellow flowers.
How sad we become so complex as adults that our idea of beauty becomes so narrow and so wrong. There is beauty all around us but our own complexities are piled so high we rarely notice unless we think the beauty we notice could benefit us in some way. A man. A woman. A painting. A statue. We only notice the beauty that might bring some benefit — some reward to us. It’s the selfish, yet so telling “look what I’ve got” desire inside us. It’s a hard to get away from that “look what I’ve got” desire, isn’t it? We’ve all experienced it – it’s a difficult desire to quell.
Beauty is like a dandelion – we really have only to glance to see its beauty. It’s hard to see dandelions as beautiful, though, if we see it as a weed to be destroyed lest it ruin the pristine green of our lawn. But a field of buttercup-yellow dandelions is a dazzlingly beautiful sight.
Some beautiful things are always there or us to see every day — the endless canopy of stars twinkling on a cool, clear night. The sunrise can bring majestic beauty to each morning but we rarely take notice – it brings no benefit, only a reminder that we’re late or that we have to get up and begin another day. Yet the benefit it brings is the gift of a new day, a new day we can use to improve ourselves and be a little kinder to others. We don’t have an unlimited supply of new days, yet most mornings we awaken and we don’t give a thought to the gift we receive. Each of us will have that last new day, maybe then we’ll look back with regret that we didn’t pay attention to the symphony of sunrise that played for us each dawn but we nonetheless ignore.
It is ever too late to recognize the beauty we ignore? I wish I knew the answer to that. One thing I do know is that there is beauty in everything around us if we care to look beneath the surface.
Not everything is as it seems to be.
Many worthy and beautiful things are hidden from our eyes. Who finds beauty in a very old person? Not many. Yet there is beauty in wisdom, but it’s very hard to see – you have to look beyond those aging eyes and wrinkle face to see it. Who finds beauty in an extremely obese person – like the one who waddles down the aisle in front of us in a grocery store? Not me and not many others either. But there just might be a golden heart inside that grossly misshapen body – maybe no one sees it because no one bothers to look beneath the surface.
When I think about it, I realize that I often think of unattractive things as weeds – and probably you do too. Just weeds in our lives and of no consequence. He or she is ugly we might say. Is he or she just a weed at which we avoid looking? For all we know they may well be far kinder than we are or than those beautiful people we call our husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, or best friends. That’s an ugly house, we might say, yet it may be the most wonderful home to a most beautiful family who shares a great love and a familial bond far greater than any we’ve ever known.
To some the world is poxy with weeds: To the powerful the weak may be weeds, to the rich the poor may be weeds, to the healthy the sick may be weeds, to the beautiful the ugly may be weeds. We may consider those whose backgrounds or colors or religions are not the same as ours as weeds. Some working people consider those on welfare weeds — lazy, lacking, weeds. We grow up and we stop looking and stop seeing the best in things.
We lose the ability to see the dandelion as beautiful flower and instead we see it as just another unwanted weed.
So much of the beauty in our world is hidden in the things we may consider weeds. As children we picked dandelions and gave them to our moms as and thought of them as lovely gifts – and they were. But it didn’t take us long to learn that dandelions are not really pretty at all because they are just weeds. Our perspective changes and we become blinded by growing up and the loss of simplicity. The more complex we become the less we look beyond the surface of things and the less beauty we see. We judge beauty differently than children because, I think, we become selfish.
There so many beautiful things in the world that we simply don’t see because we simply don’t look. There is so much beauty hidden in the world in those things we consider weeds.
There is beauty all around if we only care to look. It is true of with the moon and the sunset and the hawk on a wire and the bees and cat tails. It is
true with old ladies and old friends and old aunties with stories from long ago. It is true with old books and old teddy bears and ancient barns.
There are beautiful things all around us. All we have to do is take the blindfold off of our eyes and look.
Now when I see dandelions in someone’s yard I wonder what method will be used to kill them. Will it be poison or will they be plucked out of the ground and tossed in the garbage?
I wonder how many beautiful things I miss every day? I wonder how much beauty I’ve missed because much of what I see I consider to be weeds.
Children are innocent and full of wonder and because they are they can see flowers where we see only weeds.
It just occurred to me that spring is well on its way to summer and I’ve yet to notice a single blossom. I’ve been too busy to notice, my mind too confused to care, my spirit bound with worry. I’ll never see the tulips or the daffodils of this spring — maybe next spring I’ll see them. But one of these years there will not be a next spring and if miss the tulips and daffodils that year, I will never see the beauty of a daffodil or tulip again.
I guess it won’t make any different the year I don’t have a spring. I’ll be part of the Earth, the sky, the stars, the clouds, the oceans, the cosmos. I’ll be taken back from where I came — that a nebulous ephemeral spinning cloud of dust and gas that swirls majestically between the galaxies waiting for gravity to spin it into a star.
May I could just start all over again. On days like these, I wish I could.
Now that I think of it, I don’t recall seeing the pretty yellow dandelions this year either But that’s okay. I bet a lot of children noticed and made their moms gifts of a bunch of them. At least somethings are still right in the world.
It’s too bad that children have to grow up or at least it’s too bad that adults aren’t a little more like children. I guess, though, they are. Adults keep all a child’s bad characteristics and none of the good. Adults are possessive like children – most don’t like to share. Adults are impatient like children – they want what they want when they want it.
But children can see beauty in weeds. All kinds of weeds. They find the find the beauty in people of all ages and they find beauty in ugly and overweight and very old people too. It’s too bad we have to grow up without the ability to see the beautiful things that are hidden inside. It’s too bad we have to grow up and never again see the beauty in the weeds that grow all around us.
The next time I see dandelions, I’m going to pick a few and put them in a glass of water. I don’t know what good it will do. But it won’t hurt anything and I’ll remember when I pick some dandelions for mom and made her smile. I’ll try to remember, but almost assuredly won’t to look deeper for the beauty that is all around me but hidden in the weeds that grow everywhere.
Maybe dandelions will make me smile again someday.
Well written TC. I remember going to me Grandma’s farm.
Her front lawn was 1/2 acre, with an apple orchard beyond, 10 acres of haying fields to one side, and a huge vegetable garden on the other (next to the barn and the compost pile. The lawn was always green even in droughts and felt wonderful to walk on in our bare feet. Gramma walked in the dew barefooted every summer morning, and more often than not, we went along. Before she dragged out the old push mower, she’d give us a chance to look for 4-leaf clovers and pick dandelion greens for cooking. We’d pick the flower stems (they are tubular) and form them into circles inserting one end into the other, and make long chains. Some flowers would go into vases, and some of the flower heads would go into salads. Of course, we loved to pick stems with those little balls of fluff, blow them into the air and watch the breeze carry them off into the distance. Weeds have become a “dirty word” for some reason. Most of them are beautiful at some stage of their life…just like any other plant. Others provide food just as healthy or healthier than some of the vegetables we grow. Some have medicinal benefits that are often better than any chemical lab could make, and are free and have no side effects. When they are mowed and become part of a lawn that grows in a rich “living” soil, balanced by mother nature’s choices, it stays healthy and green and a wonderful carpet to walk barefooted on…at any age.
Thanks for sharing. I really enjoy reading this. Have a wonderful and bless night. I am going to share. So well said.
Beautifly written T.C…you brought back many wonderful memories of chidhood days. Many say..stop and smell the roses, but there is beauty even in a simple but lovely weed.
Brought back some wonderful memories! At 75, I still like dandelions! It’s quite often that the most beautiful things in life that are overlooked.
Thanks for the memories!
I remember picking Dandelions as a kid for my mother for Mother’s Day. That was along time ago. Thanks for the memory.
That was a lovely read, T.C. I copied and printed it for my kids to read. And Muriel’s comment brought back memories too. I had forgotten about making chains out of the dandelion stems. Thank you both.
So very true. I’m not going to try to get rid of the dandelions in my yard. I’m going to keep them as a reminder to look beyond the surface. Thanks for this article.
I do remember picking dandelions as a child and bringing them home to put in a glass to admire and I also remember making necklaces with their stems. Now it’s just as you say, we look at them and think, oh dear more weeds to pull out of the garden.
Just last evening, I was out in my garden pulling up a few dandelions but hadn’t gotten them all.
You know TC, thanks to you, I think I’ll just leave the few that are left to go outsie and admire.
I am another one who truly enjoyed what you wrote. My yard doesn’t get mowed early in the spring because I am 79 and depend on someone else. In the meantime, I truly enjoy all the dandelions in my yard. They are such beautiful yellow flowers and when I see an especially big one, I marvel at God’s creation anew.
Thank you for the thoughts TC. You put it better than I ever could.
You’ve brought tears to my eyes. This brought back wonderful memories of my childhood. There were 4 girls in my family and my mother’s windowsill was never without dandelions in a glass of water. I think we use to pick her those fluffy wish weeds too.
My mom died last august. My birthday is today. I use to fly home every year at this time so we could celebrate my b-day & mother’s day together. I’d give my right arm to pick my mom some dandelions tomorrow.
I will send this to everyone I know because I doubt there’s any adult who doesn’t need to be reminded of this.
Thank you
Right some good TC. Thanks to you and all the others for the thoughts.
I just finished hand weeding my lawns, and now am sorry I did.
Thanks TC for the memories. I still like the dandelions and my first thought is staying at my grandma’s house. We couldn’t wait until we could go barefoot outside. Grandma always said we would have to find a dandelion first. We spent a lot of time searching and when we found one, we would rush it into the house and take off the shoes to run through the grass. Now I have my grand children looking for the first dandelion.
You brought back memories of some 20 years ago at our house in NJ. The side yard was covered in Dandelions and instead of mowing them down we picked many and made Dandelion wine from the heads,not a great wine but drinkable. Thanks for the memories.
You’re quite a guy, TC. God Bless you. And may God Bless us by giving us many, many more years to enjoy and ponder your gifted writing. Look at how many you touched today to stop and enjoy the dandelions.
I remember picking dandelions and taking them next door to my great aunt.She would put them in a glass of water.
This brought me rich memories T.C. of my early childhood over 70years ago in County Down Northern Ireland when I was a wee boy. Picking wild flowers including dandelions and buttercups for my mother and sister. Thanks for the memory.
It is, indeed, a big wide wonderful world filled with beauty and grace.I too am 75, and still enjoy watching. thanks for a great read, and remember that each new day is a new world, filled as you choose.
How wonderfully you write to remind us of our responsibilty to look past the outer appearance of things. Now examine the dandelion flower and see how perfectly it is made, how the petals are shaped and arranged, how the layers of petals fit, and how that glorious colour brings sunshine to the dullest day. Everything has its place in the process of living, even “weeds”, and that is also something we need to be more aware of when we look at people who we think are “different” in any way.
Dandelions are also nutritious and medicinal and we look past that too. Wonder what God would think when we see his gifts as weeds. That was a truly beautiful piece of writing. Given that there is supposed to be a plant for every ailment you have to wonder if any of our “weeds” hold a more natural approach to cancer.
Thankyou for sharing,and just the other day we remarked on the grass at the side of the roads, which are now covered in dandelions instead of daffodils, that they looked just as pretty and colourful as the daffs, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I think they add to the yard , they are nice looking flowers and I make sure I have a good crop each year . I do not spray my lawn, it may not look as plush as some but it is free from the pesticides and weed killers .
I too think that the flower has gotten a bad rap.
they are lovely to me.