That Dandelion

There comes a time and a place in every girls life when you meet or see the girl you thought you were, wanted to be, and realized... it ain't so. For some this happens early on in life. Usually with an actress, model, sports figure, or Better Homes and Gardens Betty Crocker feature. But for me, an early on so called "twenty something", I thought I had skipped this part of growing up.

Sure I sent plenty of letters of admiration to Amy Grant in my years, and even though she never wrote back it never bothered me. A light bulb went off when I finally realized the models in the magazines were blessed with the art of editing, and grew familiar with the lighting tricks that actresses sometimes relied on. All of these light bulbs collectively lighting my way from above while I trotted about seeing myself for the best that I could be, can be, at each moment. Someone real, raw, and somewhat creatively artful in the way I lived my life, even if I stumbled into bad lighting.

But then I met her. The Dandelion. A weed, growing all alone in a sea of grass and flowers. But a beautiful weed. I had seen her before. Heard her name mentioned a handful of times. I was introduced and I felt what all those small girls must have felt when they saw it too... you aren't pulling it off...because this girl is already. And doing a far superior job at it too I might add, adding insult to injury..of course.

She is beautiful without make up with bone structure I have been trying to accentuate in my own face since I first picked up a blush brush. She wears lightning make up with the sleek swagger of a high fashion cat walk. Images I attempt, whole heatedly, but unsuccessful in the end. She is classic, she is modern, she has that edge and that softness that makes you want to tell her your every secret.

See, sometimes.. well more often then not. I dream. Vividly. Sometimes these dreams are scary, terrifying me to the toes..unfortunately. But sometimes they are beautiful. Dreams that look like old Hollywood movies. Moving pictures of a beautiful woman out in a field of weeds, hair curled and tossed, eyes bright, and a bust of sunlight from behind, tinted as if I spilt my tea on it, shows her silhouette leaning against an old blue Chevy. Romantic images of cherry blossoms and hardwood floors. Ceramic tiles and flamboyant hats rime the background. I can see it all so clearly. I try to recreate them with the pictures I take, hair styles I wear, or clothes I buy. but it is never quite right.. never really hitting that nail on the head. Finger to nose....spot on. But she has.

Effortless. That's the key I think to my late night disgruntled blogging. These images, these ideas, and my attempts to recreate them into myself, into my life, into my 'being'...it is all effort. Effort, ideas, and premeditated plans of action to surround myself with this style, this life so that it becomes my own, a life of beauty as I dream it to be. But she is a step ahead in her natural, and beautiful life. When I read what she wrote, I new that's how I should have been writing. When she walked, and watched the way she hesitated before she took the next step, I realized I had been walking all wrong, bushed my hair out of my face too harshly, breathed too shallow, clenched my jaw too tightly, and spoke too loudly. She lived in every moment I shared with her, for just that long. A moment. She has a way of translating my thoughts and dream like images into her real life self. Her waking day wardrobe that hangs still, and waits to be paired with unlikely matches, the songs lay motionless in her head set waiting to be shuffled into a play list I hum, and writes down the thoughts I hadn't known I was thinking all day until I see them written already in perfect order, shape and sound.

I have met that girl. and she is the link, however small or disconnected, to what I try desperately to be, to say, to appear. Dandelions are weeds, thick steamed and fuzzy/dirty to the touch. But above that the dandelion in fail, in angelic, is magical, because dandelions make your wishes come true.

Off to find a dandelion to wish on...

-Burns.