Living Happily Ever After
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Dandelion Death

Date: April 24, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” (Charles Darwin)

While doing yard work and weeding a few weeks ago, my middle son surprised me with a bouquet of dandelions. I was thrilled, delighted and quickly rushed to put them in water to preserve them for as long as possible. For that day, they sat in a vase on my kitchen windowsill. Soft, puffy, cushions of yellow sunshine. The next day they were dead.

I confess, I was a little surprised. It has always seemed to me that dandelions, creeping into grass, springing up unbidden, are hardy plants. And although I’m not a weed, flower or gardening expert by any means (as evidenced by the many plants and flowers I’ve managed to kill), I think there’s a life lesson somewhere in their short life span.

From my perspective, dandelions have it pretty easy. They bloom into being uninvited and there they stay. Cheery, yellow, WEEDY; rain or shine. They don’t need water, they don’t need fertilizer and it seems like lawn mowers even have difficulty making an impact on them! It’s an easy life, as long as they remain in their expected and “natural” habitat—outside. But pluck a few, put them in a vase full of water, and they’re dead by nightfall (or at the very latest, the next morning.) I expected them to last at least as long as flowers do in a vase of water!

With such an easy existence, dandelions haven’t had to learn to be hardy, to adapt to change or to challenge. They don’t appear to have ever had to “hang on” when times get tough. They haven’t had to develop roots. Hand them an unexpected new life—indoors, in a vase of water—and they wither and die faster than anything I’ve seen.

Makes you grateful for the unexpected life, YOUR unexpected life of growth opportunities, doesn’t it? Because it’s through our trials that we become stronger. Our challenges strengthen us (if we let them) and by triumphing over them, we become stronger. Better. More than we would otherwise have been. Draught, hardship, the unexpected life…cause us to develop roots and to sink those roots deep to survive. The character-conditioning program called life, especially the unexpected one, makes us more than we ever could have become on our own. And in the end, we master not just surviving new circumstances or new challenges, but blooming wherever we’re planted.

We can find happiness and joy in whatever garden, or yard, or patch of dirt, or pile of manure we’ve had the good fortune (or misfortune!) to land in. Life is good regardless of where life transplants you to. Sink your roots into the soil of your unexpected life, look for the beauties of it, count your blessings and strive not just to survive but to bloom.

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” (Clarissa Pinkola Estes)

The Way The World Laughs

Date: April 18, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“The world laughs in flowers.” (E.E. Cummings)

Despite my experiences of 2009 and my entry into an unexpected life (when many voices of the world weren’t quite so jolly and the tragic situation many of us found ourselves in as a result of the crimes committed by my former husband was anything but humorous) I love that thought. I love the thought of sharing laughter (aka. happiness and joy) with others through flowers—must be why I always loved May Day and secretly leaving fragrant bouquets on neighbors’ doorsteps. I also love the visual imagery of the earth, itself, blooming with flowers (aka. joy and “laughter.”) What a beautiful time of year it is as the world laughingly leaves winter behind and blossoms into spring.

Last week my husband got us all out into the yard to do some general spring clean up and weeding. I noticed it was a lot easier to see what I was doing in the sunlight this year compared to last year’s weeding and garden planting in the dark of night—but I didn’t expect it to be as memorable.

And then, when we were almost finished, my 12-year-old son walked up with a bouquet of dandelions clutched tightly in his growing hands and gallantly presented them to me with a smile. I thanked him, ran into the house, put the “flowers” in a vase of water in the kitchen windowsill and returned to my work in the yard—pulling growing things, “weeds,” that looked suspiciously similar to the bouquet on the kitchen windowsill.

“A weed is but an unloved flower.” (Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

It’s all in your perspective.

I believe it’s all about how you choose to look at it, whether it’s weeds, the world or an unexpected life. There is beauty in “weeds” just as there can be great beauty in an unexpected life. It’s up to you to see it that way. It’s up to you to take what you’re handed, look for the good and make the most of what you’ve been given; to find joy and to live after the manner of happiness despite, or perhaps because of, the unexpected life.