Lately my life has been marked with yellow circles and squares.

On the way to and from work, I see dandelions all around. Sometimes they’re wide open to the sun and sometimes closed into tighter, smaller circles with yellow peeking out. Each one is unique.

When I arrive at work, I see familiar stacks of yellow squares waiting on my desk. The little papers with adhesive on the back often come in packages with 100 sheets all alike. I use mostly 2⅞-inch squares from the 3M company or similar kinds in other brands.

Actually, 3M has related products in 27 sizes, 56 shapes and around 30 color choices, from pastels to neons, from grass green to periwinkle. By contrast, I haven’t yet seen a dandelion in millennium blue or even orange. If yellow is enough color choice for dandelions, I can get along with ordinary yellow note squares, too.

I often bring a few yellow notes from home to work and vice versa. They’re scrawled with reminders about things I need to do. If my mind is cluttered with many tasks, I sometimes need more than one square to write everything down, so I use the adhesive on the back to stick notes together like links in a chain.

I’ve made chains with dandelion stems, too. It’s been awhile, though. One of these days I might have to practice. I’ll have to watch for promising stems on my walks back and forth. Maybe I should make a note of that on one of my yellow squares.

Once in a while I do put a yellow note into my pocket before I leave for lunch. There might be a phone call to make, an errand to do or an item to bring back to work in the afternoon.

I like to finish the lists on the squares before I go home, but during a busy spell they sometimes lie around for several days, simultaneously annoying me and freeing my mind to focus on other matters.

With all the scrap paper available at no extra cost, I wouldn’t need to use special pre-cut squares with adhesive on the back, but they’re handy. At about a penny apiece, or even half a penny for brands other than Post-it®, they’re not a major extravagance. Sometimes my frugality raises an eyebrow if I write only one item per square or when I don’t use the back. Still, there are plenty more empty squares for times to come.

The dandelions are like that, too, with enough and many to spare. I like them best as they are now – yellow among the green grass of spring. To me, it’s entirely appropriate for them to be there. However, my encyclopedia says that dandelions are usually considered to be a “troublesome weed, difficult to control.”

Yellow squares can be hard to control, too. I make a note of an address, a phone number, a computer code, a correction; and before long, I have yellow papers all around. I try to arrange them in groups sometimes, but I don’t necessarily know how or when I’m going to handle them anyway. I don’t want my desk to look as though I can’t remember anything without a yellow square.

I began to wonder recently if my proliferating notes were a danger signal. After all, if I turn a yellow square 45 degrees, it’s a yellow diamond, similar to traffic warning signs for curves and intersections ahead. I thought maybe all my notes indicated things were getting out of control in my life, but perhaps the yellow papers are a solution instead of a problem.

Curious about the squares themselves, I took time to read about how they were developed. I noticed a comment that yellow is a color of hope. That spoiled the whole philosophical angle I’d been working on. I remarked to myself that the only hopefulness I’d connect with yellow note squares would be along the lines of “I hope I get all these things done someday.”

I like yellow note squares well enough, but yellow dandelions have a stronger symbolism for me. They’re a bright example of the hopefulness of spring, blossoming with as much success through a crack in the sidewalk as from a fertile lawn. With their taproots deep in the soil, dandelions can be stepped on, mowed over, have their leaves pulled off and still keep coming back. Now that’s an example to inspire hope and strength and persistence. Anyone who has tugged away at a dandelion will understand. The experience sticks with you. You can remember it without writing it down on a little square of yellow paper.

[Mary Krallmann]

Note: Readers who want to learn more about the development of removable, self-stick notes can find interesting accounts at these sites:

http://www.3m.ns.ca/Post-it/artslab

http://mustang.coled.umn.edu/inventing/Postit.html