The Dandelion Poof of Eternal Youth

Boy. What a day. Turned in my first draft of my bull-riding, middle grade book titled Cowboy Up this morning...one month ahead of schedule. Can you say brownie points?

Christa got an abscessed tooth pulled. Too much soda kiddo. And welcome to dad's Listerane therapy, kid. When it burns – it means it's workin'!

Finished Cathy Day's The Circus in Winter on the bus ride into work this morning. On the bus ride back started her book Comeback Season. One of my biggest regrets EVER was not taking one of her classes when she taught at MSUM. Cathy has a voice very few writers have – storyteller's voice, a way with words that hypnotizes people and keeps them turning pages, convinced those characters will step off the page and shake your hand. Brilliant.

Besides all that, I learned an important lesson too. Never take a long walk to the park directly after a big dinner of penne with meat sauce and garlic bread. Sure, I got some much needed exercise, but at the expense of near vomiting three times – maybe I shouldn't have given Christa a piggy-back ride on the way home.

This near-vomit is sponsored by TUMS.

Despite almost vomiting, I did find a way to do something that made me feel like a kid again. During our walk, I was striding ahead of the girls, when I heard the petite voice of Christa say, “Daddy? Here's what you can do for your blog today?”

When I turned around, I saw Christa, abscessed-molar free, holding a the tallest, poofiest dandelion poof I had ever seen.

Now you have to understand something. I haven't blown the fuzz off a dandelion in at least 25 years and in that span, I have studied the evil weed and learned to absolutely abhor it. Every single little fluff on that glorious poof lands in the lawn and sprouts another despicable, vile dandelion. I have spent over 2,000 hours of my life combating these little buggers with sprays, preventative herbicide and spades and I have yet to win the battle.

Surely, I couldn't just blow on that magnificent poof I held in my hand and purposely spread hundreds of seeds to the unsuspecting lawns of Chaska? What tormented soul would project that kind of torture on his fellow neighbors?

FOOF!

Now, remember, I haven't foofed a dandelion poof in at least 25 years. There's a lot about dandelion foofing that you can forget in that time span:

#1: It's like fireworks. Seriously. It was like being in the Matrix only with a lot less Carrie-Anne Moss. Those seeds just explode in a cloud of ambient physics...and I remember a Matrix-like pause – I call it Dandelion Time – where all the seeds froze in mid-air for a brief second, then dispersed like tiny parachutes. And that whole time, I saw each individual seed floating away like tiny parasol skeletons. Awesome.

#2: Sometimes you have to perform the double-foof, when all the seeds do not eject upon the original foof and you need an additional one to get the job done.

#3: Kids love to do this. Julia and Christa picked handfuls of these things on our way to the park and twirled like tap dancers, creating a veritable whirlwind of seed.

#4: The post-foofing dandelion stem almost makes you cry.

Tonight I thought about that bare stem, it's bald, seedless head pouting, depressed. I didn't see a spent weed, I saw me. An adult, driven to work and frustration with life. Burned out. Claustrophobic. Penned in. Days, weeks, months and years stuck in ruts. Eyes off the clock and thinking there is plenty of time yet – one more hour of American Idol, one more day wasted to mundane busiwork. Things will turn around, you just wait and see.

Then I remembered waiting for the bus tonight, watching all the other seedless dandelion heads standing next to me, passing by with their ears tied to cell phones, carrying briefcases full of pointless paperwork and meticulous forms, wearing ridiculously khaki pants and stupid patent leather shoes.

My bus came in. I watched empty dandelion head after empty dandelion head enter the bus. I was reading Comeback Season. Twenty dandelion heads got in and I told myself, “That's my bus.”

I looked up at the bus schedule.

I looked at Cathy's book.

The bus left without me as I kept reading in the skyscraper canyons of Minneapolis. People. Buses. Always in a hurry to herd off to the next slot on their appointment books. They don't even look up - the sky crisp with feather cirrus today.

Back on the path to the park, I hold the seedless dandelion stem in my hands and decide to drop it.

I pick another.

FOOF!

Another.

FOOF!