29 January 2009

Dandelion Wine, it feels oh so good!




I'm reading Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, and it's the greatest book I've read in ages. A story about summertime of 1928, it reminds you of all the beauty and wonder of seeing through the eyes of childhood.

My day started out rough. What can I say, the cold weather has got me down. I'm struggling with the overwhelming urgency of grown-up life. And then I read this... (Seriously, take the time to read this passage. You will feel goooooood!)

from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine...
" 'That's the trouble with your generation,' said Grandpa...'All the things in life that were put here to savor, you eliminate. Save time, save work, you say.' He nudged the grass trays disrespectfully. 'Bill, when you're my age, you'll find out it's the little savors and little things that count more than big ones. A walk on a spring morning is better than an eighty-mile ride in a hopped-up car, you know why? Because it's full of flavors, full of a lot of things growing. You've time to seek and find. I know--you're after the broad effect now, and I suppose that's fit and proper. But for a young man..., you got to look for grapes as well as watermelons. You greatly admire skeletons and I like fingerprints; well and good. Right now such things are bothersome to you, and I wonder if it isn't because you've never learned to use them. If you had your way you'd pass a law to abolish all the little jobs, the little things. But then you'd leave yourselves nothing to do between the big jobs and you'd have a devil of a time thinking up things to do so you wouldn't go crazy. Instead of that, why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life, son...Lilacs on a bush are better than orchids. And dandelions and devil grass are better! Why? Because they bend you over and turn you away from all the people and the town for a little while and sweat you and get you down where you remember you got a nose again. And when you're all to yourself that way, you're really yourself for a little while; you get to thinking things through, alone. Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder. As Samuel Spaulding, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.' Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. End of lecture. Besides, a mess of dandelion greens is good eating once in a while.' "
Be blessed today.

3 comments:

  1. love it!...if i could have a quote for life this would be it, but it is a little more than a quote

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  2. here is a recipe from aurthur magazine: http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=2833

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  3. Hey, Mary, yes...this is my life passage. And I am so glad I came across it in reading in the bathtub today!

    Joy, I want to have a dandelion picking/wine making party at the beginning of summer!!

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