dandelion wine.
Two lovely words, dripping down from the glistening stars, from the frigid orange popsicles I had loved in my childhood summer days, from unseen eyes and happy-sad sunsets that never did last.
Dandelion Wine. The name of the beautiful novel crafted by a masterful mind. The book that blew me away with its brilliance of a soul who was hailed by thousand names but was known to all as…. Ray Bradbury.
Who else could’ve made a reader realize for the first time that we are alive with a mere paragraph?
I remember reading such a passage over and over again. Every time I read it, the magic was there, kindling the soul, struck by jagged lightning and surging with exhilaration. I once puzzled over how Mr. Bradbury could’ve accomplished such a mighty feat but came to a single conclusion: HE LIVED.
Not life as in ‘Life’s life. We’ve got to live it’. Life as in sweet summers of magic sneakers that ran like antelopes, old people that were never young, and living time machines. Ultimately, this life was one we knew too. One that we had lived before but had forgotten. One of beautiful simplicity, but embedded with thoughts of a whirling universe.
BAM. My dream was awake.
Once upon a time, I had dreamed. I had dreamed of writing a book, a book to whisk people’s breaths away, give birth to dreams and hopes and loves, of changing the way people looked at life.
So I’d started on it. Put in beautiful words, heart-rending characters, and lovely messages.
This dream of mine, though. It was missing something important. Without this important something, my dream had lost its will and fallen into a deep slumber.
And right there, I knew.
It’s like trying to find a way to describe Ray Bradbury’s books and coming up with only “They’re just so good.”
It’s like realizing the meaning of life but not saying it because… because it just didn’t need to be said.
It’s like reading the prompt: ‘How has Ray Bradbury influenced your life or your work?’ and ending up writing this.
It’s just this feeling. This feeling that what I’ve written here doesn’t make much sense but you and I just know somehow, that I’ve said so much.
Because you and me?
We’re all alive.