Dandelion Tea (How An Uber Driver Saved My Soul)
He described dandelions in a thick Vietnamese accent. I recognized the inflections and rhythms in his voice, same as the ladies gossiping at the nail salon while doing your nails.
Gossip has a serrated emotional edge, you don’t have to understand the language to know they’re talking shit about you. I don’t blame them, I’d be talking a lot of shit if I was doing nails all day too. People are gross.
But this man spoke to me first in silence, looking at me in the rear view mirror with a depth and concern that you only found with old fashioned doctors.
He spoke to me like a doctor.
“Yes, dandelions. Make a tea. Go pick them and dry and make tea.”
I told him I like dandelion tea, I’ve had it before. I had bought a box of dandelion tea in the store.
“No you make it yourself. You don’t know what’s in that box. You go pick dandelion, you make a tea yourself.”
He was confident and sure so I agreed.
Why not.
We were silent again and he examined my soul with his gaze. Like a doctor.
“You know, it takes millions of years to be born a human. It’s not that easy. You can be born an animal or an insect or a rock, it’s not easy to be born a human. So don’t waste it. You don’t waste your chance to be a human.”
I was heading home from the hospital, breathing through a plastic tube coming from the oxygen tank I carried on my shoulder like a purse. I was beyond worrying about judgement, what I must look like, what do people think or assume, all I could manage was focusing on doing what I needed to do. To survive. As I had been for years.
His judgement was kind, and wise. So I didn’t mind.
“I know this guy, he don’t care about anything. He just go to work, go home, and do nothing. He don’t sleep good, so I tell him to drink this tea.”
“Dandelion tea.”
“Yes, dandelion. So he drinks this tea and a couple days later he tells me he feels better. He sleeps better, he has energy. But he still doesn’t care. He go to work, go home, and do nothing.
I tell him he has to want to live, you know? The tea can do nothing, you have to want to live.”
This seemed like a big job for tea. But I was listening.
“Your life is like a sponge. You have this sponge and you fill it up with your life. You can do something good for people, and it fills up your sponge. You have this chance as a human to fill your sponge.
The more you can fill your sponge, the higher you can float to heaven. When you die your sponge will float you up.
If you waste your life, you don’t float. You don’t want that.”
He handed me the Rx with his words, I understood exactly what he was telling me.
I needed to want to live.
Doing all the things I needed to do, the fulfillment of duty alone was not enough. I needed to find meaning in being alive, I needed to want to live.
Anything else is dying, and the body responds accordingly.
Even when the body is dying, we are still alive.
That is the Medicine, no other medicine can work without that medicine.
“I will make some tea.”
“Yes, dandelion. Get the dandelion in a field yourself and dry and make tea.”
“I think you filled your sponge today. Thank you for sharing this with me.”
He laughed and smiled with his eyes, and I no longer felt like I was speaking with a doctor, but a friend.
I’ve been told I live a very poetic life, and I’d agree that I really do. We all do, when you know how to listen to the poetry constantly surrounding us - in our environment, our relationships, the spontaneous coincidences that feel more destined than random.
In fact, writing can be an act of deep listening, poetry is the language of the soul. I put together a free Poetry For Your Soul 5 Day Experience so you can experience the healing power of writing poetry for yourself.
Sign up here and start today:
https://jennysjolund.com/poetry-for-your-soul
xo,
Jenny
