- Planting Dandelions by Kyran Pittman
“The path that winds through the backyard, can be just as meaningful and wondrous as the one that goes up the mountaintop.” – Kyran Pittman
Summary:
Introducing a writer with a keen eye, a wicked tongue, and an appealing take on family.
In the family of Jen Lancaster and Elizabeth Gilbert, Kyran Pittman is the laid-back middle sister: warm and witty and confiding, with an addictively smart and genuine voice-but married with three kids and living in the heartland. Relatable and real, she writes about family in a way that highlights all its humor, while at the same time honoring its depth.
A regular contributor to Good Housekeeping, Pittman is well loved because she is funny and honest and self-deprecating, because her own household is in chaos (“semi-domesticated”), and because she inspires readers in their own domestic lives. In these eighteen linked, chronological essays, Pittman covers the first twelve years of becoming a family, writing candidly and hilariously about things like learning to maintain a marriage over time; dealing with the challenges of sex after childbirth; saying good-bye to her younger self and embracing the still attractive, forty-year-old version; and trying to “recession- proof” her family (i.e., downsize to avoid foreclosure).
From a fresh new talent, celebrating the joys and trials of a new generation of parents, Planting Dandelions is an entertaining tribute to choosing the white-picket fence over the other options available, even if you don’t manage to live up to its ideals every day.
What a great book! Each essay in this poignant memoir is entertaining, emotional, humorous and real. It begins with Kyran’s wild life, after leaving her first husband to travel alone, she finds herself immersed in a new relationship that’s heading straight towards marriage. She jumps in with both feet and her essays beautifully capture her rapidly changing life, from divorcee to wild child to mother of three.
Initially, Kyran’s journey is one I wasn’t sure I would relate to or enjoy. Here is this woman who meets a man on the internet, leaves her husband and begins a new romance before fully terminating her marriage. She bartends, lives recklessly and has a hippie-vibe. All that changes pretty quickly when she ends her first marriage, marries her second husband and begins immediately building a life with kids, a backyard and all that comes with that “white picket fence” ideal. But things are never quite “ideal.” And this is where Kyran captures the readers heart. She is brutally honest, authentic and uses a pitch-perfect voice to capture the complicated lives of women.
Here is a link to a reading guide with discussion questions for Planting Dandelions. I really enjoyed the way Pittman explores the complexities of women’s lives with both humor and honesty. This is a great read and one that will certainly resonate with women everywhere.
