Dandelion: The Extraordinary Life of a Misfit

by Sheelagh Mawe

  He nodded.

  “And that's not the whole of it,” she hurried on, urgent by then in her need for sympathy to shine out of his wise eyes. “Now I find I can't live with a master nor yet alone. I am not what I am supposed to be, don't you see? There is no place I belong. I am nothing…” At those words she wrenched her own heart so badly she could not go on.

  Slowly Timothy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, worrying Dandelion, as he always did, that he would topple in the endeavor, and asked, “And what in the name of all that's holy is it you're thinking you're supposed to be then?”

  “Why a work horse,” Dandelion said, impatient he had not understood her from the first.

  “And did you never, in all this long while, think to see yourself simply as yourself?”

  “As meself?”

  “Aye. Yourself. Neither work horse nor race horse, just yourself.”

  “To be sure and I'm meself. Isn't every living thing itself? But I wanted to be more than meself. I wanted to be a race horse!”

  “I heard you the first time, me darling. A race horse without a race. And it's wondering, too, I am why you're after setting such limits to yourself, limits that for sure exist only in your own mind and no place else. Sure and there are a million things you can do in life, as yourself. Is it thinking you are that there are only two alternatives to every little difficulty in the world?”

  “I don't think being a misfit all me life and nearly starving to death and having no place on earth to belong are little difficulties,” Dandelion retorted, her heart turning cold as the snow at her feet at his lack of understanding.

  As if to further bruise her pride, Timothy yawned a great yawn and when he was done with it said, “A sorry tale of woe it is, your life, to be sure and indeed. And tell me, did you never, in all the sad living of it think to make a connection between your thoughts and your actions?”

  Dandelion considered his question a long time trying to make sense of it. She made none. In her mind, thoughts were one thing, actions another.

  “Let it pass for now then,” he said, when she'd opened her mouth half a dozen times to speak and never uttered a word. “Tell me instead,” he went on, “what your thoughts are now?”

  “Me thoughts?”

  “Aye. Your thoughts. What goes around in your head from morning till night? What went on in your head, say, in all the time you were lost?”

  “Well... Until I met you, I... I suppose I thought about how hungry I was... How cold... How lonely...” She trailed off, too sad to go on.

  “And before that? When you were trying to take your good mother's place. What did you think then?”

  “Oh, I was so unhappy,” Dandelion sighed, remembering. “I thought no matter how hard I worked or tried to be like her, I would never earn the respect of McCree. And then later, when I stopped trying, I used to worry that he would keep me out in the heat and the cold and the wind and the rain, making me do the same stupid things over and over...”

  Timothy nodded, understanding. “And before that?” he encouraged. “When you were with the race horses?”

  “Oh,” Dandelion brightened. “Why then I thought about how fast I was and of all the races I would win. But... I've told you all this already.”

  “Never mind. Go on. And before that?”

  “Before that? Why, I don't know. I believe I was too young to think at all. I just enjoyed being meself, don't you see? Testing meself. Making up me mind to do a thing one day, executing it the next. I was happiest of all then,” she finished softly, “when I was just being meself.”

  Timothy nodded.

  Dandelion laughed bitterly. “Aye, I thought to be meself until I learned me life was planned out ahead of me. Before I knew there existed such things as work horses and race horses.” She sighed, “Life was so much simpler then.”

  “Life is simple, me darling,” Timothy said firmly. “It only becomes difficult when you fail to understand that whatever you think about you become. That, and by allowing your head to be filled with the beliefs and opinions of others.”

  “And how was I after doing that?”

  “Well now, you listened to your good mother, may she rest in peace, did you not? And was she not of the opinion that the only good life was the life of the land?”

  “Oh yes, indeed. She always said...”

  “And your elegant friends, the thoroughbreds? Did they not believe that life, to be valid, had to be lived on the race course?”

  “Oh yes, why...”

  “And you, me darling, what do you think life is to be lived for?”

  Dandelion stamped her hoof at his seeming lack of understanding. “That's just it. I don't know what life is to be lived for. I thought if I were free... that is to say, when I set out on me journey - without ever meaning to, as I told you - I thought then to find the answers in me freedom but now I know that freedom has no answers. A hard thing it is to be free and besides, I am no freer now than I was on the day of me birth. I have not found, in all me travels, the meaning of me life.”

  “And where will you be looking now, me darling?”

  So many questions! He made Dandelion feel like a baby answering to its mother. And what fool questions besides. As if she would go on looking further when she had found in him the answer to all her difficulties.

  “I'll not be looking further,” she told him quietly. “A grand day it was, the day you found me, Timothy. Not only did you save me life, but a grand new one you gave me besides.”

  “Did I now?” he replied, his eyes widening in amazement. “And what is this grand new life I'm after giving you?”

  “Why the one I'm living now, to be sure. A fine time we'll have of it the two of us. You'll teach me so many things... How to find food and shelter and look after meself. We'll look after each other. Be hermits together...”

  She heard him snort and it was a snort of disgust. And she saw pity in his eyes.

  “Only the very old are entitled to be hermits,” he said, sending a chill of alarm through her body. “The purpose of life is to live it, and there'll be no hiding away from your own here with me.”

  “But I can't!” she gasped, not believing her ears. “You saw what became of me out there alone. Besides, it's old you are now, Timothy. You'll be needing me just as I need you. Why, the very least I can do is stay with you after all you've done for me! I owe it to you!”

  Timothy was scandalized at her words, as close to anger as she was ever to see him.

  “I'll not be carrying the burden of your smug self-sacrifice with me to me grave, thank you kindly,” he glowered. “Self sacrifice is for weaklings afraid to live their own lives so they foist the responsibility for it on others in the name of kindness. And then expect everlasting gratitude besides! As for owing me, you owe me nothing nor any other creature either! It's yourself you owe. Pay your debts to yourself, little Dandelion! Become the fine horse you were born to be. Make your own contribution! For that is your obligation and that is how you help others, by example. There's no happiness or satisfaction to be found in helping another before you've learned to help yourself. Is it a parasite you're wanting to make of yourself?”

  He was calmer then, the humor back in his eyes.

  “But I don't want to leave,” Dandelion insisted, not caring that he see tears in her eyes. “Why would I? I'm at peace here with you. Safe. Besides... I'd not be staying out of sacrifice at all. I'd be staying because I've learned to love you. I want to be with you.”

  She cringed inside then, fearing that in spite of her terror he would still turn her away.

  He did.

  With a weary sigh, he said, “No, me darling. You don't love me. You are grateful to me. There's a difference. Love doesn't put the burden of itself on another in the name of gratitude. It doesn't make demands. Love gives... Allows freedom... And asks nothing in return. Come to terms with yourself, little one. Learn to love yourself.”

  “But Timothy,” Dandelion wailed, at her wi
t's end to make herself understood. “When I'm with you I do love meself. You accept me for what I am, not for what I have or have not become. I am happy with you. Happier than ever before in me life.”

  “Aye. And I'm telling you again that that is not love. When you love yourself, you won't be needing to see yourself through the eyes of another to feel acceptable. You'll be accepting yourself. Why, what's to become of you if the loved one leaves? Or dies? Will you be chasing off to find another? And then another?”

  It had grown dark as they talked but Dandelion's heart was darker still. How cruel he is, she thought. How cold.

  “If you make me go away I will surely die,” she said quietly, watching his pale outline from the corner of her eye. If she had expected him to come upright at the shock of her words, she was disappointed. If the truth be told, his old head sunk lower, as if her panic were indeed a burden too great for his old frame to support.

  “Where would I go?” she asked, her mind such a dark swirl of despair that her stomach churned. “There is no place for me out there.”

  “Sure and there is,” he said. “Every living thing has its place, else it wouldn't be here. Unless you were so lost in yourself as to be completely blind, you'll have noticed in your travels how often man, in turn, serves his beasts. For whom does he grow his crops and bring in his harvests, if not, in part, for them? A natural give and take to nature there is - a harmony, as it were - where every living thing fulfills its place. From clouds to ants, everything serves everything else, between horse and man, no less than others. There can be equality, each side giving their share. Sure and you know what I'm speaking of. Your good mother and McCree lived it. Did he not love your mother?”

  “He didn't love me!” Dandelion burst in hotly.

  “To be sure and I know it. Many there are with only so much love in their hearts, and when it is given to one it is gone and none left over for others. So it was with him. You can't be blaming the man. His intentions were good. He did his best for you.”

  “A poor best it was,” she sighed. “A poor best indeed.”

  “There's no virtue to be gained in dwelling on past injustices,” Timothy said sharply. “McCree is but one man. Millions of others there are, good and bad, and never a-one will you be finding hidden away here. Your place in the world is secure. You must go and find it. Besides, life is not just about finding and learning. There is much for you to teach besides.”

  “Teach? Me?” Dandelion gasped. “Why, I know nothing.”

  “You'll teach by being yourself, as we all do. You are the small offspring of two great Clydesdales. Nobler beasts never walked the earth. You are also the descendant of an Arab, the most beautiful and courageous of all breeds. And yet, you are like neither. The world has much to learn watching you become.”

  “Become? And what is it then that I am to become?”

  “To be sure and what else? Yourself!”

  TWELVE

  Yourself! Yourself! Dandelion's head drooped at his words. Was there to be no end to it? No quiet little talks? No friendly gossips where he would not be forever forcing her back to herself? He might as well have forced her to look at her own reflection the length of the day, for all the good it would do her.

  And yet it was always Dandelion seeking Timothy out and not the reverse. She knew he had the answers to her life and she thought, if she were only clever enough, to wring them out of him.

  “This place I'm to be filling...” she began artlessly, coming upon him drinking at a stream. “It's slipped me mind now where it was you said I'd be finding it.”

  Timothy stopped his drinking to gaze thoughtfully off to the distance, as though searching his mind for the place he had told her.

  “I'm not remembering now where it was,” he said. “Remind me again where it was you've already searched.”

  Dandelion was gratified to see her ruse succeed and she half turned her head away for him not to see the satisfaction in her eyes.

  “Why... everywhere! Far and wide I searched. Uphill and down dale, day in and day out...”

  Timothy was thoughtful at that, as though in his mind he saw her, ever searching.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, “It's remembering now I am and I'm thinking there was one place you didn't think to look.”

  “Yes? Oh, where? Tell me quickly.”

  “It's not so much a `place' I'm thinking of, for no doubt you noticed in your search that one `place' is very much like another.”

  “Why no, I saw no such thing. Some places I found hilly, others flat. I found woods and lakes and...”

  “To be sure. All different but, in a way, the same. The only place that is different - unique, you might say - is not to be found out there, but inside.”

  “Inside? Inside what?”

  “Inside yourself.”

  “Inside meself,” Dandelion groaned, but looking down at her chest and along her flanks nevertheless, half expecting, in her bewilderment, to see a signpost invisible until then.

  “Yes, inside yourself,” Timothy insisted, his wavering old voice growing firm. “Yourself knows where you should be and what you should be doing. You must learn to listen to it, trust it.”

  “Listen? But to what?”

  “To your impulses. Your urges. Your intuitions. They are the part of you that know what is right for you, and they will lead you to your best realization. Only listen and you will learn from them.”

  Memories stirred in Dandelion's mind at his words. Of her earliest days when she had learned to walk, to gallop. Of when she had trusted herself to do whatever she wanted to do, helped by something that was of her but not of her. The times when she was kept from harm by... she knew not what. The time she had been pushed, almost against her own will, through the gate and away from McCree.

  “Is it telling me you are...” she hesitated, “...that there is a part of me that knows what... I do not?”

  Even as she spoke, Timothy's head was nodding and his smile transformed his face.

  “But what is it in me that knows these things?” Dandelion asked.

  “Why bless you, me darling, it's the `you' of you. The soul that began when time began and will go on, long after the `you' you think of as yourself has gone. Throughout eternity it lives and knows all things as you will, too, when you learn to listen. It is the part of you that chose to be born as you are now; that wanted the challenges such a life would bring.”

  Dandelion felt a tremble run through her, a prickling in her hide at the thought of so much knowledge and power hidden away inside of herself. But, “How is it then,” she asked, “that this clever part of me did not help me these past terrible months when I was so lost and hungry? Or before that? When I was so unhappy working for McCree.”

  “It was trying, me darling. Always it is there, chattering as it were, prompting you, urging you, eager to help. But you haven't learned to listen. You listened instead to the opinions of others. Opinions that you never thought to question but accepted as fact. You do not have to be so big or so small or fill a certain mold. You only have to be yourself, totally unique, the only Dandelion there ever was or ever will be.”

  A certain pride Dandelion felt on hearing herself described in such a manner: “Totally unique...”

  “The beliefs of others it was,” Timothy went on, “that stopped you, me poor Dandelion. That made you ugly and resentful. Crippled your spirit. Made you give up. Think, because a handful of beings, out of millions in the world, found you lacking according to their opinions, you gave up on yourself and a terrible thing it was.”

  And now Dandelion's good feelings were gone, taken away by his words as surely as they were put there by his words. A fool it is, I am, she thought as he spoke. A fool to be sure.

  “Turn those beliefs around,” Timothy said loudly, bringing her sagging attention back to himself. “Believe that you are special. Believe in your own worth. Find your purpose. Believe in yourself.”

  “But how...?”

  “With beli
efs of your own, me darling. And by using the most powerful tool in the universe, your own imagination. Begin by imagining what it is you want to be and know yourself capable of becoming it. Project it forward with emotion. Desire it with all your heart. Then follow the promptings from within and go forward to become your dream! Live it!”

  Inspired Dandelion was by his words and she drew herself up tall, felt important, in control of herself and her life.

  “And what shall I become?” she asked breathlessly, eager to set off at once in whatever direction he might point out.

  “Ask yourself.”

  “Back to meself again,” she glowered, stamping her hoof in vexation. So close she had had him to giving her a direction to follow and he'd trapped her again. “Is that all you'll ever be saying to me, then? Ask yourself. Be yourself. Know yourself...”

  He grinned his toothless grin. “Aye. Always and forevermore, me darling. For to tell you otherwise is to waste me time and your own as well. True learning only comes from within. To learn elsewhere, from me or others, is to have the knowledge shaded and distorted by the viewpoint of the donor. Can you not see that every time you ask a question of another, you take away from yourself? Give a part of yourself away that is rightfully yours? Become less instead of more? You know the answers. All of them. They are inside of you and you must listen for them.”

  “You make me tired,” Dandelion said crossly

  “Yourself, likewise,” he replied dryly, turning away.

  “Oh, don't be leaving me, Timothy. It's sorry I am for me bad manners. Tell me only how to begin and I'll be leaving you in peace.”

  But Dandelion had pushed him too far and he would not be drawn back. Five words only he had for her, thrown back over his shoulder as he walked away, “Listen to the voice within.”

  THIRTEEN

  “I will then!” Dandelion shouted after him. “See if I won't! I'll show you you're not so almighty clever!”