Reflections -  “Dancing in Your Head”

Dandelion Seed Puff 3

Would Spence celebrate?

My husband isn’t a holiday freak. Unlike me, he never taught elementary school so didn’t glorify holidays to entice children into reading. And he downplays celebrating his birthday. “I’m a community organizer. Organizers try not to draw attention to themselves.”

However, he looked forward to Memorial Day weekend each year so that he could invite his brother’s family, eight individuals strong, to Wells Wood for a traditional welcome summer celebration. During their last visit at Christmas when great-nieces Addy and Amelia were nearly five and three, Spence’s brother ad-libbed funny song lyrics, thumbs flew over shiny screens, and three or four concurrent conversations increased in volume. The little girls traipsed through clusters of grownups so Addy could ask Spence or me, “Is it time for an adventure?”

Spence grinned as wide and bright as a glowing jack-o’-lantern when he talked about these visits “They’re like listening to ‘Dancing in Your Head,’” one of his favorite jazz pieces. The free jazz didn’t delight me, but the gathering did. His birthday fell close to Memorial Day so the family visit served as a birthday party under another name.

This year’s holiday weekend arrived with cornflower-blue skies, newly verdant trees, and steamy 88° F (31° C) air—perfect for his favorite celebration. But COVID-19 brought restrictions and family distancing of a hundred miles, not six feet. 

No group walks.

No family feast.

No Addy and Amelia adventures.

Instead Spence worked in the south garden.

He lugged heavy watering cans from the cistern hydrant to splash relief onto wilting peppers, cucumbers, and zucchinis.

He muscled pvc pipes into the ground and joined them with connectors to fence critters out of an area four times the size of last year’s fenced garden.

He shoveled around pigweed, pried it loose until the carrot-like root broke deep underground, then tossed the weed onto the tractor path for death by dehydration.

South Garden Fence

Late in the afternoon, however, after trading the watering cans, pvc connectors, and shovel for his flame weeder, he ambled to the lawn between the new apple trees and West Creek Road.

Hoping he’d changed his all-work, no-celebration day, I grabbed my camera and ran after him.

He turned the knob on the propane cylinder, squeezed the flint sparker—rasp, rasp, rasp—and lit the escaping gas. Whoosh-hummmmm. He aimed the metal circle at the end of the wand at the dandelion seed puff. 

Orange flames lit the spiky, white seeds making them vanish. Magic. 

Attaching the zoom lens to my camera, I switched the dial button to macro and focused on the next seed puff in Spence’s path.

Whoosh. The puff flamed orange then blackened like a burnt marshmallow. 

Swinging the weeder with its flaming end just inches from his feet, he strode toward the next patch of puffs. 

“Aren’t you worried you’ll set your shoes on fire?”

“No.” He held the aiming circle half a foot away from a seed puff. “Are you ready for the next photo?” 

I peered through the viewfinder and pressed the button half way for automatic focus. “Ready.”

He lit.

The lens release clicked.

The puff exploded. 

Dandelion Seed Puff 1a

“Why don’t you torch the flowers before they go to seed?”

“Bees love dandelion flowers.” He set three more puffs ablaze. “We need the pollinators. But

Dandelion Seed Puff 1b

cremating the seeds keeps the weeds under control.”

His patience with my questions and photo quest reminded me of his patience with the great-nieces. “Addy and Amelia would have loved this adventure—the whoosh-hum, the shiny blue propane canister, and the disappearing seed puffs.”

His toothy grin told me he’d been considering the dandelion torching as a great-niece adventure too.

They would have danced around the yard pointing at the next puff for Spence. Addy might even have convinced her doting great-uncle to let her have a turn. 

He would wrap his arms around her to keep her safe and hold the weeder-wand with her to keep it steady. 

Addy, in her great-uncle's protective arms, would ignite puffs. 

She’d let go of the weeder and jump on her toes. 

Amelia would clap her hands and twirl in circles.

Spence celebrated—humming his song while his imagined adventure with his great-nieces danced in his head.

A different song, “Blue in Green,” captured the day for me. This classic jazz ballad always comes to mind with the blue and green of nature’s calm sunny days. On Spence’s birthday, though, the song resounded with its true meaning—blues for Spence having to celebrate without his brother’s family on his green-green birthday.

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