Someone once told me that the best pieces of creative writing should either feel like a dream or the memory of a childhood summer. One of my earliest memories of my grandmother feels like both.
We’re in Dorset, staying in a cottage with a three-legged cat, surrounded by green hills that stretch out in all directions like the neatly cut ridges of a quarry. To a seven year old, they look enormous. I’m staying in a tiny attic bedroom; the carpet is a sandy white, and the only wall decor is a palm-sized photograph of a fox in a teal blue frame. I love it. I wish I could live here forever.
My grandmother takes me out on a walk. We wade through dry waist-high long grass. There are yellow wildflowers everywhere—buttercups and dandelions. The sun is just beginning to set. I pick a dandelion and hand it to her.
“Make a wish!”
She doesn’t even pause to think. She grabs the weed, says, “Long life and health,” and blows the seeds hard.
Boring.
She picks one for me.
“Make a wish, Lulu.”
I think as hard as I can.
“Harry Potter’s wand,” I say, decisive. “Because then I can have unlimited wishes.”
She chuckles. I blow the seeds, thinking I’ve won the game.
I don’t remember how old I was when I realized that “Long life and health” was something worth wishing for, something that couldn’t be taken for granted. But I’ve been honoring my grandmother’s philosophy ever since. Now when I make a wish, I don’t even pause to think.
On birthdays when I blow out candles, catching them all in one breath, slicing the knife down until it meets the cake stand.
Long life and health.
An eyelash on my cheek, in the bathroom mirror while I’m brushing my teeth, under the running tap.
Long life and health.
Dandelions in spring, in the park by my old school, drawing in a breath just like a child.
Long life and health.
Everything else will fall into place.
