gentler gingerbread

"Would you like me to tell you a story?" I rashly asked.
My little granddaughter nodded.
"Once upon a time," I began, quickly sorting through the file labeled Stories For Small Girls, in my mind.
Ahhh, there it was, The Gingerbread Man.
I loved that story as a child.
I loved the illustrations just as much as the words or maybe somehow, even more.
My older sister balked at reading it aloud to me, but would always grudgingly give in.
I had memorized it as though my life depended on it and so of course she was unable to edit it for brevity.
I took some liberties with the tale as I told it to my granddaughter.
That is the beauty of story.
It can be so easily custom shaped to fit.
Together, she and I added ingredients into an imaginary bowl and then baked the little fellow. The story magically transformed our little gingerbread man into a friend. He was just the right size to play with her dolls when he visited the doll house with her.
Much better than the shock of having him leap, shouting, from the oven to run away and be gobbled up by a dishonest fox. That version will have its day no doubt, but for now, a gentler gingerbread man snoozes on a pink plastic sofa.

finding

I gazed in admiration at roses spilling over a fence yesterday.
Red, red roses.
Fairytale red.
The color of Snow White's lips or a Prince's tunic.
It has made me ponder fairytales.
It has made me think of the power of myth.
The enduring potency of story.
For centuries, philosophy and fact were carefully crafted into story and passed along, and eventually down to the next generation.
The brothers Grimm gathered the stories that were still circulating in their day, and the fragments of stories and compiled an anthology of sorts. There were common themes but they added and embellished as is the way of the story teller. How glad I am that those ancient myths still remain.
I loved fairytales when I was a girl.
And fables.
There is an excitement in finding the gems; the glittering truth that lies obscured.
In Sleeping Beauty, a child is blessed with every blessing in the world by the fairies, and then cursed with death by a malevolent crone. The curse was softened from death to sleep and Beauty was reawakened by the kiss of true love. G.K.Chesterton saw the story of mankind contained within that ancient tale. The story of mankind being blessed with every blessing imaginable and then cursed by everlasting death. The curse of death was softened to sleep in that we die but may live again, immortals reawakened to everlasting life by the death of God Himself in our place, a divine kiss of love.
The story of Cinderella is another ancient tale rich in gems.
It contains the universal truth of transformation. Cinderella's supporting cast, the footman and coach and horses and driver were really the most ordinary things, the most mundane and even humble things; A vegetable and vermin and a mangy dog. They were elevated to a place of great usefulness, great purpose and honor. They needed only the masterful touch of the supernatural. Cinderella herself is humble, toiling unnoticed and unappreciated. But of course, the universal truth is that she was not unnoticed at all. She was a princess undiscovered. She was made ready for the Prince, who loved her at first sight and who searched for her until she was found and who then claimed her forever as his own. If you are familiar with the stories liberally sprinkled through the gospels, told by Jesus, you will see common themes. We toil in poverty of soul, in despair even. But transformation is possible. The Prince loves us and seeks us. He longs to claim us as His own forever. Transformation is His specialty. 
1 Corinthians 1:27-29
"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."

familiar

I used to paint.
That was my default pleasure, but I seldom kept any for myself.
My grandmother once remarked after visiting my home that there was nothing in it to show people I was an artist. I thought about that and realized her comment meant more than it seemed to at first glance. It wasn't just an absence of my own artwork in my home that she was referring to, but an absence of that very personal statement ones home eventually wears with the passing of time. Those clues about who we are and what we value that surround us, that define us, comfort and even inspire us.
She would be pleased now I think.

I've written about this series of bird paintings; gifts to my parents once upon a time.
They have returned to me like homing pigeons.
I haven't hung them up and I wondered tonight why that is?
It's because they mean Birch Island to me I think.
Because they represent my parents as a couple, as a pair, happily living in the woods, surrounded by birds.
There is a time for everything and one day, it will seem like just the right time to hang them up on my walls and take joy.

The voice of birds in always in the air
Even here in town.
Crows are heckling cats.
Hummingbirds are thrumming amidst the foxgloves.
Sparrows are chattering.
Starlings, with their chameleon song, bubble and whistle.
The distant trees are never still.
In their top branches I see  familiar silhouettes.

And against the afternoon and evening sky, birds bank and dip and soar.

way at the back

Long ago, Ikea sold wooden cheese boards that I seized with joy and promptly painted.
I love the green grapes and I am fond enough of the others too, but what was I thinking when I painted the strawberry leaves? Everyone knows strawberry leaves come as a three-some, like clover only bigger and toothier. Somehow that detail seems a glaring mistake and so I have hung the pictures in my dimly lit entry, way at the back by the closet we seldom use. Perhaps I should pick up a paintbrush and make things right but then what would I hang in their place?

temporarily mislaid

There is a school not far from where I live. It has a towering structure dominating the playground area that I have looked up at it with some misgiving.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday I watched my grandchildren climb it.
Climb it and hang from it and slide down it and stand on it and balance and swing and drop from it.
My grandson's face was alight with joy.
My granddaughter clung like a little tree frog.
I think I have regained something I had temporarily mislaid.

croissants

I had been teaching my little granddaughter the difference between Fir trees and Spruce trees. Lest you think I'm Yogi Bear, I had recently had a similar tutorial from my nature wise husband and was bubbling over with surplice knowledge. I was enjoying the sense of compressed joy that comes from learning something new. Maybe that's why children are so happy.
In the spring, evergreens are covered with new growth. Brown buds give way to tender green needles, as soft as silicone.
"What are those croissants for?" my granddaughter queried.
"Croissant??!!"
And then I looked more closely at the tips of the branches we held in our hands.
The brown buds were being pushed off by the growing needles.
They were brown and papery thin with the airy, bubbly surface of good pastry..
They were even curved.
Miniature croissants.

tiny bright eyes

We kept a list of birds this past weekend;
birds that hopped around our campsite,
or flew over it,
or fluttered around the edge of the lake as we fished.
Two dozen in all.
My favorite ones were the Brown-headed Cowbirds.
The males strut like tiny roosters and puff up their feathers irridescent black.
Their heads are a rich nut brown.
The females are the picture of decorum,
modestly dressed in beige,
but they watch the boys with tiny bright eyes.