Mundane Dandelions

For me, two sure signs of Spring include a five-gallon bucket over-flowing with pulled dandelions and a blister in the palm of my hand from digging said dandelions out. Sure. I could spray the yellow heads away. I could watch them slowly wilt from an inside window. I could hope the chemicals got them all. But, there is nothing more effective than pushing the old metal digger at the base of each root and plucking it from the yard. Each means a long time bent down. Each means you think you have them all, only to look up and see the other three corners of the yard that remain untouched. But, once each is out, there is the instantly gratifying knowledge that the roots are destroyed. The yard is clear. All yellow is in the black garbage!

With the end in mind I headed outside, both yesterday and today. Three buckets later, I have a tender palm and a blister on my thumb.

That amount of time pushing and plucking gave me time to think. Time to pity the predictable routine of my life. While friends rave of vacations to world-renowned gardens or beach sands, I see the deer-eaten tulips here. While sick kids cough and cling on me, I helplessly bide the time it takes to pass. While final paperwork was signed to renew my teaching license, I continue to miss teaching. While others head out to make a paycheck, I look over bills and see no way to cover daycare. While friends move out of church callings, I feel very forgotten.

Yes. It has been one of those weeks. Roll you eyes if you want. Write me off as an unstable mess. Regardless, this week has felt very much like plucking dandelions. Day after day of just taking care of what your supposed to because it's where you are. Doing what no one else can, or will. Doing what you can to make sense of where you are, only to look up and see the next ten patches that lay in front of you. Moving onto the next rough spot, only to peer back and see that your past hard work is/will be forgotten because no hint of a past mess can be seen.

How frustrating is that! Someone walks by after the fact, and has no understanding of the yellow that used to be. No I did not pay some expensive truck to come and spray. I got down on hands and knees. Myself.

How similar to the daily mundane.

It isn't that I need recognition for my work - although it'd be nice. It isn't that I need to travel to see beautiful things - although I do currently have a fierce sense of wanderlust. It isn't that I want to keep things messy to prove what should be done - I'd drive myself crazy if trying to prove that point.

But, if it isn't that, what is it? Not trying to prove anything, what can I learn from my mundane dandelions? From the dandelions that I cleared today? From the hidden batch that will appear tomorrow morning? And the day after that? (aka "the things I have to do, but don't want to" in life)

Well, two buckets in, I decided that:
1) I do it the long and hard way because I know it works.
2) I look back and have a sense of what I've done. Whether anyone else knows, I do.
3) If I buck up and deal with things now, I'm much better in the future.
4) There is nothing wrong with someone else not knowing what used to be. They don't need the back story. They can have a beautifully clean place to enjoy along their way.
4) I don't need to go see exotic places. Sometimes drinking a glass of ice water while overlooking one's own freshly-mowed patch of space is the most satisfying place to be!


So, see you soon, next round of dandelions. I'll be here. Again. Hopefully with a more sincere smile on my face. Hopefully with a well-deserved callous on my hand.