Reading Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" came at a time that synced with all that was going on in my life and all the changes I didn't know how to handle. As my mother says, "this is a book that should be read every ten years." Different from Bradbury's science fiction style, the novel is a coming of age story, not just for youth, but for every age of life: youth, teen, adult, elderly. It encompasses life's change at every age in every dimension, desire, and trepidation. It depicts those defining moments.
This year I began volunteering with a hospice and family care company. I found myself conducting and piecing together the oral history of a fabulous woman who just turned 99. A five month adventure of listening to a strangers life opened my eyes and gave me insights into my own life and the inability to stop age.
As spring jumped to life so did "Dandelion Wine" spring into my outstretched hand. When not reading, I took the book with me everywhere I went in my purse: Go to pay for a coffee and there it was, reach for my phone to talk to a friend, and my fingers fumbled across the curve and spine of "Dandelion Wine." I read it slowly and absorbed every chapter with each word pouring from my silently spoken lips.
Reading this novel, I kept a pen in hand and found myself underlying passages left and right. Each passage opened new thoughts to the oral history I was working on, as well as my new found age phobia. I recognized my luck and the importance of what I was doing. The more the chapters passed by the more I felt this was Bradbury's "Peter Pan." Only the ticking crocodile of time wasn't just chasing Hook, but all the lost boys in turn, ready to eat each whole without thought or concern.
As Doug says in the book, "The magic was always in the new pair..."(p.20). Doug was referring to summer sneakers, but the realty is that life is magical with each new step a person takes. It's not just our first steps that should be recorded, it's our fifth, our sixteenth, our twenty-first, our thirtieth, and our ninety-ninth that need to be preserved so when the time comes it's possible to uncork them and take just a small sip to remember and then move forward. It is our self discovery at every age that is important, because as Grandpa states, "It was over before it began..." (p.237). In short, enjoy it or life will pass you by.
And so I take the words of "Dandelion Wine" to my memory box, bottled away to ponder, and maybe in another few years I will uncork this master piece again and taste a sip of "Dandelion Wine" with my next stage of life.
Bradbury, Ray. "Dandelion Wine," The Grand Master Editons, Bantam Books. New York: 1976
