Dandelion
in a Ditch
(A
Fable)
by
Catherine Maven
1996 (Edited May 2018)
Once upon a time,
there was a dandelion growing in a ditch, surrounded on all sides by dozens of
her cousin-dandelions. Warmed by
sunshine, or tickled by rain, the dandelion was perfectly content.
But then, in the
course of one short day, everything changed.
Ten people walked by the ditch that day, and although Dandelion usually
paid no attention to these transient beings, on this particular day she found
herself forced to listen.
The first person
who walked by stooped low enough to smell and stroke the dandelion. The dandelion was unused to such personal
attention, but it felt good. The person
said, "Oh, Dandelion! You are my
favourite spring flower!"
Dandelion was
amazed and pleased. While a moment
before, she had been just herself in a ditch, she now knew herself to be
someone's favourite flower. She pulled
her stalk a little straighter and stretched herself as tall as she could. She glowed with pride.
Not long after,
though, the second person who walked by the ditch that day snorted,
"Dandelions! Ugh! Why doesn't the City
get rid of these ugly, disgusting weeds?!"
"Oh, no!"
thought Dandelion in horror. "I'm
not a favourite spring flower after all.
I'm really an ugly, disgusting weed." And she began to wilt a bit right at that
moment, her bright yellow bloom bending over in shame.
When the third
person arrived, Dandelion held her breath – spring flower or disgusting
weed? But the third person cried
happily, "Oh, look at these lovely greens!
They'll make a wonderful salad
for dinner tonight! I can’t wait to eat
them!"
The person had just
begun picking many of Dandelion's cousins and putting them in a basket when the
fourth person joined the third and said, "Are you picking dandelions for
wine? No? Well, you'd be amazed how much money you can
get for dandelion wine! I crush them
myself at home." And this person
began to greedily grab handfuls of Dandelion's family.
Fortunately,
neither of these people managed to harvest Dandelion, and when they were gone,
she said to herself, a bit bemused, "Salad? I'm good for salad? Someone wants to eat me?" and "Wine? What's that?
And money? That person certainly
thought dandelions were valuable, but I don't think they seemed as happy to
collect my cousins as the one who wanted 'salad'."
Now Dandelion knew
she was valuable all right -- valuable enough to be eaten or crushed into
wine! Suddenly, she was afraid. She didn't want to be valued in a way that destroyed her.
The pickers had seemed oblivious to her family
as simply dandelions in a ditch. People
only wanted her family members for what they could do with them. She liked being important, but she wasn't
sure she liked the reason.
She was afraid to
stand tall with pride for fear she'd be picked, and at the same time she was
somehow ashamed that neither of the last two people had chosen to pick
her. Maybe if she stood a little taller,
someone would want her? She didn't know
what to think.
The next three
people to come by were quite a bit smaller than the ones before. Two boys and a girl came together, giggling
and pushing each other in a friendly fashion.
"Oh, no!"
cried the first boy. "Dandelions!
I'm al–al– ah-CHOO! –lergic to them.
Let's get out of here!"
"I'm making
that one sick," thought Dandelion sadly.
"What kind of monster am I?"
But then the other
boy leaned into the ditch and snapped the head off of Dandelion's next-door
neighbour. "Here," he said to
the girl, "Let me rub this under your chin. If your chin turns yellow, it means you like
butter."
"Really?"
the girl responded eagerly.
"Try it!"
the boy cried.
But Dandelion never
got to know whether the little girl liked butter or not, because just then the
children spotted a bee on Dandelion's head, screamed in fright, and raced
away.
As the bee fled the
commotion in the opposite direction, Dandelion drooped with shock. Her neighbour, so callously beheaded – was
she as unimportant as that? Did her life
really mean so little?
She hardly had time
to begin to consider the import of these events when two more children appeared
along the road. "Oh,
dandelions!" cried one. "Let's
make necklaces!" "Okay!"
The girls sat down
on the bank of the ditch a little way from Dandelion, where there were still
members of her family growing. Dandelion
watched in horror as one after another, the dandelion stalks were broken from
their bases. She turned away, unable to
watch. But she was encouraged to turn
back a few minutes later by the giggles and cries of delight issuing from the
seated girls.
When she made
herself look around, Dandelion was overcome with emotion. One girl wore a dandelion-chain necklace and
bracelet, and the other wore her dandelions as a crown of flowers in her
beautiful hair. They were busy admiring
one another and crowing with glee.
Their joy was infectious,
and Dandelion's heart grew lighter. If
she had to be picked, please let it be by creatures as lovely as these, on whom
the sunny yellow flowers glowed, as one girl said to the other, ". . . more beautiful than the most
expensive jewels in the world!"
As they left,
Dandelion felt almost embarrassed by her own beauty. Was it possible that she looked as lovely as
her cousins adorning the child's head?
Then she remembered
being called an 'ugly, disgusting weed', and she grew even more confused. "Can I really be so beautiful to one and
so horrible to another?" she wondered.
"I must be a very complex creature to be capable of such
contradictions. Too bad I can't stop being a 'weed' and only be a 'jewel'."
Now she began to
experience self-hate for the first time.
If she had it in herself to be a 'weed', she could never be a perfect
'jewel'. Perhaps that was why her
cousins were gone and she remained.
"Nobody wants me," she sighed.
"Why am I alive at all?"
And she wilted into depression.
But the last person
to come by that day was the very little boy who lived at the other end of the
lawn which grew beside the ditch. While
his mother watched from the porch, the boy toddled up to the edge of the ditch
and peered down. "Wook, Mommy!"
cried the little boy. "Dandewion!"
In that simple
statement, Dandelion suddenly found her answer.
Other people’s opinion of her was just that, their opinion. She was who she
was, and it was good enough for her.
As the weeks went on, Dandelion practiced accepting
herself in spite of, rather than because of, what others thought of
her. But she still felt helpless as she
watched other flowers and plants in the ditch get picked or stepped on, admired
or ignored.
“Do I always have to sit here and wait while
others decide my fate?” she cried to
herself. “What choice do I have?”
Then, one day, it
dawned on her. She was a Dandy
Lion – she had the right to stick
up for herself, to defend herself against harm, to live in peace and safety and
joy.
In that moment, she
straightened up to her full height, and ruffled her yellow petals out like the
mane of a lion, and felt courage grow inside her like armour. And you know, although other plants in that ditch got picked, or trodden down, or
carelessly broken in their primes, somehow, every harm passed her by, and
Dandelion lived a full, content life.
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