Birthing Fairies, Rebirthing Me: The Lake Again

 Draft One...

Birthing Fairies

I remember the day I discovered that fairies are, in fact, born on sunny calm mornings on lakes.  I had spent the night at Judy's and awoke with the sun, as was my custom.  Jude's family seldom arose before 8:00, so I knew I had to be quiet.

I slipped onto the porch and I saw the golden sparkles on the Lake.  I know that it had to be just before or just after kindergarten, because of where the horizontal beams were on the screened in porch.  I was little and I had to tiptoe  to get a good view over, or scrunch down to look through the bottom screen.  I also was little because we were not allowed on docks without parents unless we had on our life preservers.  I used a pole to let one loose off its hook.  I remember, because the pole was very, very long and it was hard for a little girl to manipulate.

I sat silent on the dock, watching the sparkles get bigger and bigger, then disappear entirely after a blinding glitter as they reached the shadow of the shore.  I had lately seen Peter Pan, and had a sudden revelation, "Tinker bell!"

And in my brain I thought that this is where all of them were born, on mornings like these, and I pictured them twinkling all over the world, visible only in the twilight or reflected on the water by the sun.  I wondered what would happen if the sun never shone and no more fairies were born, but that thought would stay only a second, because there was the sun and there were thousands of them born, out there in a golden pool of liquid light, scattering and skimming the surface to the shores.

I ran right into Ted and Janet's room.  I'm not sure where I left the life jacket.  I'm sure they were thrilled.  I ran in and said I had to run home to Mommy and tell her I'd seen the fairies born.  To their credit, they let me go without a lecture.  I can see Ted shaking his head at me, smiling, and his enormous hand reaching out and stroking my hair.

And I ran home to my mother to tell her.  It was a different time, a time when small children could run home, unaccompanied, without fear of strangers. I forgot to shut the screen door as I ran into the house, but I loved the sound of spring and slam. Perhaps the boys in the bunkroom next to the door had a different thought. I heard a groan, but was too focused on my news.

Mom was having tea with Daddy. I was grilled first, of course. I believe the little hand was on the seven, over the stove... "So, dear, you went into Jan and Ted's room to tell them you were coming home?"

"Yes, because they'd worry and we're supposed to tell the grown ups where we are."

They didn't tell me I'd done anything wrong, as soon as they realized I'd put on a life jacket.  I had followed all the rules.  No one had told me I couldn't walk home alone.  Up there, it was a non-issue. But I jumped up and down, alternating feet, until finally Mom asked, "Do you need to go to the bathroom or is there something important you need to say?"

"Mommy, FAIRIES ARE BORN ON THE LAKE! You have to SEE."

They didn't laugh at me. Dad inquired how I knew this to be so, and I explained about how the sparkles got bigger by the shore and we had just SEEN Tinkerbell on TV, so how could it be anything but fairies?

"Of course," he said, and returned to the paper, holding it very high so that I could not see his face. Mommy simply looked at me with that strange stare she always had for me when I had discovered something important.

"Let me finish here, dear, then we'll go explore your theory."

When she finished her cup of tea, She stood slowly, cleared the dishes and put them in the sink, and simply turned to me.
"Go, quickly, now. Into the Plymouth."

Mom took me to the beach in the car!  The little hand still wasn't near the eight.  We stood by the rocks and the gnarled beeches, and the huge white pine that swept the water.  We watched the sun to our right, silently.

Then my mother turned to me and said, "Well, you're absolutely right.  I never saw it before. Trust you to figure it all out for me. I knew all about elves, but, Jetty, this is remarkable."

And we stood there, a small girl leaning against her mother’s still-aproned hip, until the sun was too high and the lake broke up into blue.

***

Years later, for fifty plus more years, I go to Judy's dock. I go to the Bridge. I talk to the mountains. And the fairies are still  born.

Coming Home to Me
I looked to the mountain and its silence filled my heart with a longing that had no sound,
No words,
No music,
No form.

A longing past the loneliness of a woman in this body alone,
    without a lover to venture near, let alone enter.
A longing past a womb, still fertile yet unseeded for forty-plus years.
A longing past opportunities gone or missed.
A longing past mistakes or past, or wounds that never seem to heal.

I looked to the mountain for answers, but heard a question unformed in the wind.

I lowered into water, unburdened by bulk, too little strength or weakened spine.
I played and I jumped and I glided,
Soothed by caresses of a thousand tinkerbells born in a morning sun so bright,
I could not witness their birth wide-eyed.
I squinted,
I laughed,
I sang.

I helicoptered in waves created by Star Wars single-manned vehicles
     from the Dark Side.
I dolphin-dived through white caps and swells,
    oblivious to belying lumps of age.
I was sleek.
I was a child and abandoned the longings and galloping night-rider fears of aging alone.

I emerged, sat still,
shivering on the dock, studying my blue-tinged nails.
I smiled at the grown up who played too long for the joy of beating gravity’s pull.
I fooled myself, and God laughed Its answers to my joy.

In the song of the mourning dove, the splash of a mink.
In the rustle of squirrels, and the dart of the swallows, scooping the dragonflies before they flew.
I heard God whispering the answers I heard long ago,
“Hush.
You are enough as yourself.
Enough, if less than all.
A symphony in yourself.
Hush.
Rest.
Believe.”

And I cried,
Then sang
My Lullabye to Jessica, and
My last love song to Jack.
I sang for the loves I will never have and the only love who felt true,
To the mountain,
To the loon.
I sang my own song of God,
To my sister, to my mother, to my father.
To the loves I had known, to the friends I still knew,
well-weathered or new.
I sang,
for the miracle of answers
Without words,Without form,
But with their clear, soaring tune.

Later, I sat warmed,
Looked again to the mountain; it sighed.
I smiled back, and came home at last.
There, by the mountain, by my bridge, by a lake,
My hand before me, holding a mallard feather in my lap.
I smiled down at my hand, fifty-five years later, there.
Just so.
Pinky curled in ecstasy of a feather.
Joy flooding every crack in my soul,
I came home to myself at last.
 And my mountain smiled back at me.