booandbunny

Mariposa flew through my brain all weekend, then spilled from my pen all day yesterday. For some reason, I decided to actually scribble this week rather than type. So much inspiration and support I've found lately. Of course there are bits and pieces of my life here, but I feel the cellophane unwrapped, the plastic egg cracked and the Silly Putty of my imagination stretched into something I've never experienced before. For an abundance of imagination and amazing writing, check out Sunday Scribblings.

Any other shopping day I would have missed her. I would have reached into the refrigerated shelf, grabbed the butter and left. But sick kids put me behind this week and he generously shoved me out of bed before they got up.

“Go to Panera, relax, THEN get your errands done. We’ll be here when you get back.”

I didn’t even take a shower, just grabbed my keys and left. Soon I was on the battlefield that is Costco on Saturday morning. Thursdays it’s just me, very few other shoppers. But on this battlefield I got pinned behind the door by the crowd. There I was, leaning on the butter and into the refrigerated case while they sampled caffeinated water. That’s when I saw her.

Balled up behind a four-pack of well priced butter I found a fairy in the fetal position. Carefully I scooped her into my jacket pocket, where she felt about the size and temperature of an ice cream sandwich.

For a long time she didn’t move. But as the coolness began to fade I’d feel a twitch or a tickle. By the time I was on my way to the car there was a voice.

“Just one more second,” I said loud enough for the people around me to think I was talking to someone bigger than an ice cream sandwich. I loaded the car and got in. Carefully I unzipped my pocket and she stuck her head out.

“I’m still cold.”
I helped her to the dash board. Soon her skin had gone from a scaly grey, which shimmered like fish scales, to a glittery lavender, smooth like a baby but still with that rainbow reflection of a fish out of water.

“How did YOU get in THERE?”

“Well, it’s a long story.” She stretched and wiggled her naked feet. “Have you time?”

“All the time you can give, but you’ll have to get used to being interrupted.”

“I’ve nowhere to go … I can’t fly yet.” She looked at her wings with worry in her eyes. “There was this goose, you see, friendly as most geese are, and we would fly together and sing and oh! It was grand for a goose can hit low notes no fairy can! So we’d fly and sing and one day my wings became so very tired and I looked down and saw nothing familiar and I said ‘Oh! Brantay I’m going to fall!’ and I started to and she scooped me up and I fell asleep on her back. I woke as we landed some place called Oklahoma, far far from home and I knew being in this country wasn’t safe. There’re no other fairies in this land of non-believers. But Brantay assured me she would keep me safe and get me home in the fall. We went on like this until we got here, her hatching ground. It was then she found a mate and turned on me, as women are wont to do to their friends once they find love. Once the eggs came and her flying feathers fell out the nest was too dangerous a place and a sparrow found me crying under a lily plant. She, too, befriended me and we flew and sang and had a grand time until we got confused and landed in that horrible place. I became so very hungry and felt so terribly alone after she died …”

“The bird died in Costco?” There was alarm in my voice as I turned the car West. We’d been driving a few minutes already. “How I wish people could build into their environment instead of on top of it.”

She kept talking.

“Yes, the poor dear broke her wing. Well, after that I was afraid to try to fly in there and crept around in the night like some kind of wicked scavenger. The butter was the best I could do, despite its horrible taste and that dreadful cold …”

We pulled into the garage and she cringed. “Not another of these caves!” Her tiny scream pierced my brain.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You have a new friend and I know the way out. Besides, I have a lily bed.”

She uncovered her eyes and made a twitch like a smile.

“C’mon, into my pocket.”

“Why?” Her wings moved. I guessed she was finally warm enough, but she made no attempt to fly.

“Because I have to hide you from the kids. They could never be expected to keep our secret. And once it got around school, well, they might never live down that they believed in fairies. Then the kids would be crushed that no one believed them. How I wish people could just let people BE instead of judging each other all the time.”

She agreed to hide from the children after I agreed to find actual butterfly milk, which I wasn’t quite sure how to do. Warm, but still weak, she now reminded me of a ballpark hot dog more than an ice cream sandwich in my pocket.

The groceries were unloaded and the kids were still in front of the TV. This was Day 2 being fever free, puke free and diarrhea free. They were alert and eating real food. The refuse of a week of sick kids littered the house: puzzles half worked … books spilled across the Comfy Chair … DVD boxes sliding open from the shelf … blankets, pillows and stuffed animals abandoned now that they felt better.

“Come here,” I said to him.

“When are you going to take your jacket off?”

“Just come here!”

I’m sure he thought I locked the bedroom door for other reasons. He smiled and put his hands on my waist. Then my jacket pocket spoke.

“Ow!”

He jumped then stared in wonder as I cradled her in my hand. Her wings gave a slow flap as she batted her lashes at my handsome husband.

“Men don’t usually believe,” she muttered.

“He’s a very special man,” I said. “I wish all women could be as lucky as I.”

She crinkled her nose at me and only turned back to him after unfurrowing her brow. A deeper purple had entered her cheeks.

“What? When … ? How … ?” He groped for words.

We told him the whole story, tripping over each other and describing too much along the way. “She needs to eat. Are the kids well enough to go to the Butterfly House?” I asked.

She stood up at this, her face full of hope. I swear I saw her lick her lips.

By the time we’d rousted the kids, driven to the place, paid and found a quiet corner from which to release her she’d grown quite impatient. She scrambled up a branch and I feared I’d never see her again.

It’s not a large place, but full of wonder, especially for young eyes shaking off the weight of viral sleep. The kids seemed re-energized. We were watching a Red Lacewing drink from an orange slice when she zipped past my ear.

“I feel like me again!”

From the corner of my eye I saw here. Her wings no longer the dull sheen of a silver maple leaf on a sunny breeze. Transparent yellow-gold and black, I only caught sight of them when she paused on a branch to kiss a Common Blue Morpho. “Do be careful no one sees you!” I prayed. “And please come back to me!”

She’d had her fill … and stashed a store in an empty film canister. “Thank goodness I haven’t gone digital,” I thought.

She splattered my jacket with rainbow dust as she scrambled inside, much hotter than any ballpark dog I’d ever spent $6 on. She must have fallen asleep because I didn’t hear from her for hours. The kids were getting to bed when she finally woke.

“Mommy, are you going to sleep in your jacket?”

“You dream sweet dreams,” I said. “Don’t worry about how I sleep.”

Lights off I tripped in the hallway … one foot on a Barbie jeep, the other pierced by a Power Ranger.

“I wish we could keep this house CLEAN! I growled through gritted teeth.

“Finally!” A squeaky shout from my pocket.

“Shhhh!” We went into my room and locked the door. “Honestly … look at this!” Far from a romantic refuge from the parental storm, my bedroom resembled a college town Laundromat on Sunday night. Overflowing baskets as far as the eye could see. Mariposa was kicking at the zipper now, so I let her out. She zipped up to the fan blade, about 8 feet above me, perched and smiled down on me.

“Finally! Finally! Finally a wish we can do something about. I mean, what do you think I am, a genie or something? Fix the environment … make people innately generous … turn more men into the perfect combination of physical fitness and artistic sensitivity. I hope you find a genie one day. But for now you get fairy magic, which is fantastic enough, but not alter-the-world-in-a-flash. We fairies work one-on-one. Three wishes for THAT PERSON, for that believer. But, seeing as your husband believes, too, only the sensitive artistic men do, he’ll get his when he asks, so you might want to talk things over before spending your other two wishes …”

“Two?” I interrupted. How she could go on, now even faster than before.

“Well, yes, you wished to keep the house clean, so we’ll start there. Watch how you speak, you wish for a lot … big wishes, like I said. I see I’ll have to reel you in to get this done in a timely fashion. So, about the house, shall we start now or when you’ve rested?”

“When I’ve rested,” I said, moving Kaya off her bedroll and into a new spot on the bookcase. “You can sleep here.”

She floated down from the fan blade, sprinkling rainbow dust behind her. She got comfy and looked at me. “Fairy dust isn’t as messy as it seems,” she said, throwing some at my face. “It soaks into all who believe. Goodnight.”

“Don’t let the kids see you,” I muttered falling into bed.

The next day I woke with new energy. I moved past the morning’s obstacles as if I had wings. The laundry progressed from the bedroom floor through the machines past my hands and back where it belonged. It seemed effortless, rather than the bleary, endless task I usually faced. With the house emptied onto the school bus I danced all the lovees and toys back to the proper cubbies, scrubbed the bathrooms, dusted, vacuumed, paused for my noontime salad and somehow avoided my power nap.

It was then that I went out to the lily bed to find her. She’d befriended the cardinal family nesting in the neighbor’s tree, but flew over when she saw me.

“So, how comes the cleaning?” she asked, balancing on the tip of the season’s first bud shoot.

“I’ve been working like crazy!” I whispered. “When are you going to come do your thing?”

“What do you mean?” She circled my shoulders and hands, a wave of dust coating my skin. She descended as though a spiral staircase encircled my legs. Before I could tisk at the mess the dust was gulped into my skin. “Why aren’t you taking your nap?”

“I’m not tired today.”

“Interesting,” she said with a smirk. Her yellow-gold wings glimmered. “I’ll come in at dusk. I like the bed you gave me.”

That night we whispered to each other. She told me about the butterfly milk the cardinals helped her find and how she’d swooped over Brantay’s nest and saw hatchlings. She still missed her old friend. The cardinals guided her back to me. I was thankful.

“I don’t understand, though,” I said. “I thought you were going to grant my wishes. I still did all the work.”

“I told you, I’m no genie,” She was doing a zig-zag over our bed … enough dust for both of us. I’d heard them talking when he brought her in. He was still playing his guitar downstairs.

“Open the children’s bedrooms,” she said. A lap over each bed sprinkled my beauties with rainbow light. It hovered then was pulled into each as though they were vacuum cleaners. “Now they’ll always believe in magic.” Mariposa fluttered to her own little bed and we both fell asleep.

A few days went by like this. With the school bus loaded I’d pick up, wipe up, tackle a dresser, closet or corner of the basement. Soon nearly the whole house was clean and organized and the kids and my husband weren’t shedding items everywhere. Neither was I.

Each night Mariposa sprinkled each sleeping child. Each night she zig-zagged over our bed. She went out with the dog before the kids woke and returned at dusk, which in summer was after they were in bed with a book. It took a while, but I began to watch my use of the word “wish,” until one payday came along. The thought went through my head before it crossed my lips. So I added some adjectives when I asked.

“I wish I could be financially and physically safe and healthy.”

Her nose crinkled. “I’m no genie.” She frowned, but I just grinned.

This morning the spiral staircase was tightly wound from my head to my toes. I inhaled deeply as she went past my face. The dust was sweet as it passed my nose and lips. How wasn’t she dizzy when she came to rest?

Coffee in hand I sat down with the bills and saw things a new way. If I do this here and that there … If we pay cash here and skip that there we won’t have to charge this. Hmmm. The kids played in the backyard as a plan unfolded. Then I got restless. Normally I would have napped to turn of my brain. Today we followed Mariposa and the

cardinals down a trail through the woods behind the house. Funny how she stayed out of sight of the kids. Funny how good it felt to perspire.

So summer went on. The kids enjoyed the low-cost adventures afforded by a fenced backyard and a library card. We splurged on a Saturday trip to Mastedon State Historic Site. They were archaeologists for the last two weeks of the summer.

All the while Mariposa sprinkled. When his guitar wasn’t humming I heard pencil scratches or water running over dirty paint brushes. Uncertain of his exact words I knew he’d wished for color in his windowless beige suburban cubicle … for music beyond the rhythm of keyboard tapping. And I thought of all the voices and faces in my own head. I had one wish left.

The bus drove off and I straightened up. I paid the bills that came in the day before … a new habit that was really saving money. No more late fees!

Mariposa was out with the cardinals. She’d been back in touch with Brantay, whose maternal instinct had downsized substantially since the goslings took flight. The music stopped downstairs and soon he emerged from the basement. He always took the first day of school off work.

With our romantic retreat freed from the slush of laundry and unfiled financial papers we were able to adjourn there with new purpose. Well, not NEW, perhaps REDISCOVERED. In our mid-30s we might never reclaim the stamina or abandon of the 18-year-olds who met at college. But the love had never left us, so having the quiet time alone together was all we needed to make an effort to reclaim our youth.

“Do you have any idea how relieved he is?” Mariposa said that night after sprinkling the last child. “He thought you weren’t attracted to him anymore.”

“That was never true!” My voice was louder than it should have been, but no one woke.

“What was never true?” he asked as I undressed behind the locked bedroom door and cozied up to his warm body.

“I’ve never wanted anyone but you.” I kissed him then. As the dust fell my last wish flitted through my head. “Have you made your last wish?”

He ran his hand down my body. “What do you think?”

Mariposa grinned as she made her way to her bed. “Fairies must be asexual,” I thought, wondering for the first time how old she was, if she were mortal and how fairies were made.

“You haven’t,” she said, crinkling and furrowing. “I must commend you, though. You’ve downsized your wishes. Genies are exceptionally rare, especially in this country. You’re unlikely to find one. Besides, no one ever LEARNS anything when a genie grants a wish. Genies just hand you what you think you want. Fairies help you hold on to it.”

“I know,” I whispered, squeezing my husband’s hand.

“Brantay says she’ll take me home,” she mumbled, drifting off.

“I thought she might,” I said. A tear hit my pillow and we were all asleep.

Before she and Brantay left I had written three Boo and Bunny stories and a list of ideas. A journal had been doodled up and coated with poetry. The house was still clean and the debt was still shrinking. The autumn rains were cutting into my walking and swimming, so I bought a fold-up work-out machine and started using that. As she sprinkled us one last time I asked her: “How long before the magic wears off?”

“What do you mean? It doesn’t wear off. Didn’t you hear me the other night? Fairy magic isn’t like genie magic! We don’t work big and run off. We take what you give us, then give it back to you.”

Our final visit to the Butterfly House seemed to have given her extra juice. She was on her third trip down the all too familiar zig-zag pattern. She could see me crinkled and furrowed and so, with a roll of her big green eyes she went on to explain.

“You both gave me the same things … you believed in me. You took time for me. So I believed in you and helped you believe in yourself. By the way, this was no small task where you were concerned. Handsome over there, he is so handsome dear, I really can’t believe he isn’t more, well, you know, it doesn’t matter the species, usually such handsome males parade about more. But he IS the sensitive, artistic type. For him it was more a matter of he didn’t think he had time for it all, but you both still took time for me.

“So I showed you the way.” She was running on like the day we met. I just drank it all in. “And the more you believed in yourself and the more time you took to organize the mumbo jumbo your kind makes for themselves the more you believed and the more time you had to spend on what matters to you … drinking up the woodland, feeling water on your flesh. There was time for good-deed-doing, darling, and time for each other.”

She was tucked in her bedroll now, which after her season with us was quite polluted with rainbow dust. The kids would draw in it from time to time.

“And your wishes were passed on to your babies,” she mumbled, snuggling in. “You never spoke of them, but they are always with you two, so each night I sprinkled them because, you know, children believe. They just DO. And I can confess now, they have all seen me. We chat when you’re asleep. So you see, they think I’m a dream and still they believe. And they will always believe in themselves, in magic. They will always make time for what’s important to them They will .…”

The bus pulled away the next morning under a low, grey October sky. He stayed home from work again this day as much to keep me aloft as to soak up our last minutes with Mariposa. I wish you could have seen the neighbors’ faces when a flock of geese dropped on our front yard! Alas, I’ve never quite conquered my liberal use of the word, but I’m better than I used to be.

One goose wandered to the lily bed, where Mariposa was crouched beneath the browning leaves. A blink later they took off and moved into their perfect V. As they did so, a glimmer appeared and we knew she was flying. I couldn’t keep from crying.

I looked at my hands and gasped. Then I couldn’t stop laughing. They were rainbow glittered tears.

// posted by HoBess @ 5/23/2006 09:35:00 AM