Ode to the Big D

My good friend Kathy Loomis and I have been writing e-mails to each other, sometimes daily, for almost ten years now (this was what I wrote about our Daily MailProject, and we have done others). Right now, due to the circumstances, we are writing under the self-imposed title “No C”, meaning that we won’t mention the virus or discuss the illness. Of course, the whole world’s life is not only influenced by what is happening but our lives are affected just as well, but we are both trying to look at and write about the things that we would be doing without the virus, such as cleaning our studios or working on some pieces of art. Making masks, again, is something we would not have done if… but it can be mentioned. As you see, the title is intentional, and we can take our certain liberties.  In any case, the “No C” has given me the idea of writing an ode to the big D.

Because it is dandelion time here right now. 

And I love dandelions. 

In all their shapes, stages, forms. 

After the rain...

in company...

amongst peers...

On Instagram I saw a post by @lizzigodden about how she had used dandelions as artistic inspiration, and that, of course, is much more sophisticated than anything I am going to do with dandelions here. Just photos.

I know, they are considered a weed by serious gardeners. But I am only a gardener with limited abilities, certainly only a limited amount of dedication to maintaining a tidy and neat garden, and I simply love flowers. And ‘weed’ is a classification by definition only, a very subjective way of naming this flower. 

It could equally well be called a wildflower, and everybody would be perfectly happy. So when I found myself taking lots of pictures of dandelions these days, and came across that post on IG by Lizzie,  I decided to chant and sing the ode to the D here, as it had been brewing in my head already anyway. They are great for bees (and bees need anything easy to get in these times!) and I like the honey that comes from mainly dandelion fields, they are incredibly yellow (and I love yellow) and the have these fantastic stages of mutation from the yellow half circle to the fluffy white balls with each and every seed and a private paraglider to start off into another life cycle. 

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do that - let the hair grow out into a little paraglider and take off, to start over, anew, at a different place...