Magical Moments

I’ve always looked for the magic in life, even during the darkest most troubling times. They are always, always there, though fleeting. As if entering another realm for just a while when time seems to stop and life and joy and the wonder of a child lift our hearts and laughter resounds like bubbles in the air. And it’s real. These moments are real. I’ve always reached for them and now, as I move through this time of recovery from last year’s events and health crises including a lot of anxiety and some depression, I’ve been reaching for them even more. And they are there. Opportunities to experience so many new and different and wonderous things are always available to us. Sometimes we have to ask for help to get there, or make extra accommodations for ourselves in order to make the experience physically possible, and sometimes we simply want friends along for the journey to go seek the joy with us.

This photo was taken on one of those days recently when I went with friends to a Fairy Festival. There were bubbles, castles, music, fairy houses, flowers, magical forest paths, and even a Fairy Queen. As is the case with many things I do these days, it took so much for me to get there and by the end of the day my energy was beyond depleted, which is how my days go. I only have a small window of activity before I need to rest, so I choose my activities wisely and carefully. I almost didn’t make it this day and even the day before tried to give the ticket away to someone who I knew wanted to go. Thankfully she had other plans at that point, so I mustered everything I had and my friends made it easy, as they are aware of my limitations. I am blessed to have people like this in my life.

The bubbles were fun. We posed in front of the bubble machine and I held the camera on top of it so it wouldn’t get soapy and took many photos, hoping at least one or two would capture our joy as we laughed while bubbles floated around us and even hit us on our cheeks or noses. It was wonderful!

Despite how I felt physically that day, I can look back at this photo and remember the joy and the magic. I remember feeling much more before the strokes… and yet as blank as I might feel a lot of the time, I know when I enjoy something. I see it in pictures. Like this one.

Fairies and Fairy Art

After learning that Long Island’s First Fairy Festival will be held this May at Sands Point Preserve, I entered a new painting titled “The Bird Fairy” into the Fairy Art Show that will be held during the festival. The painting above is titled “Firefly” and I painted it many years ago when I lived in a place that felt really magical to me. “Firefly” sold to a couple who saw it at my solo exhibition at IMAC concert hall in Huntington in 2001 and I hope they are still enjoying it! I always hope that the people who are moved enough by my art to purchase it and live with it continue to enjoy it once the work of art has passed into their hands.

Recent thoughts of Fairies are awakening my lifelong love of the Fairy and Elven realms and is guiding me back to a dim little light inside myself that I thought had gone out. Perhaps it has, just like in Peter Pan when people say they don’t believe in Fairies, one drops out of the air and withers away. Perhaps sometimes the most crucial thing to our wellbeing is that someone is able to truly see us and say, “I DO believe! I DO believe in you!”

It would be too lengthy a blog post to write about all the ways that Fairy has touched my life throughout the years, and how many times people from different areas of my life over the years have said they felt the Fairy magic in me. I am remembering it now. I had forgotten, with all the loss and sadness and grief and illness of recent years… I had forgotten. My light went out. But I am starting to feel a flickering inside.

I do so hope that my “Bird Fairy” gets into the Fairy Festival Art Show. Certainly I’ll post about it if it does. Or perhaps I’ll post about it even if it doesn’t. If the flicker grows stronger, perhaps there will be more Fairy-themed posts in the future. For now I’ll end this post with an excerpt from my book titled “Memoirs of a Little Ghost” which is available on Amazon.

“Do You Believe in Fairies?” - April 6, 2010

"I do, I do!" At least I think I do. I've always loved the idea of fairies... airy little whimsical beings who could fly about unseen by human eyes and do mischievous or magical things. At least I imagine pretty colors, transparent wings, pointed ears, something sparkly like fairy dust and an ethereal presence that can be detected if we only believe. 

One summer evening when I was living at a farm-like place, I walked from my car, over the lawn and toward my apartment. My boyfriend at the time was with me and I wondered out loud if we would see any fireflies that night, since we hadn't seen any yet so far that season. Watching fireflies is one of my favorite things each summer, and the first firefly is always the most exciting, like the first snowfall in winter, or the first robin in spring. 

That night, it was a beautifully calm and peaceful evening with almost no wind, and the temperature was perfect... not too cold, not too warm. We looked around and started seeing some fireflies. They're easy to spot with their warm pale greenish glow and the upward movement as the evening wears on. I was the one who was far more interested and kept watching as if I were a child seeing them for the first time. 

It didn't take long for me to spot something across the lawn and past the rose garden, and it was not a firefly. It was bigger, brighter, faster and a different color. Another insect perhaps? Perhaps.

As we were about to enter the apartment, I looked at it and wondered what it was and pointed it out to my boyfriend, who was the "have to see it to believe it" kind of person. He knew a lot about a lot of things, but he had no idea what this could have been. He unlocked the door and for the split second that I took my eye off of the thing, it had zipped over the rose garden across the lawn and was not far from where we stood. That was an unbelievably short amount of time for anything to have flown that fast! It was eerie and I'm sure we both got chills (at least I did). I asked my boyfriend if he saw it too, and he did. Suddenly Mr. "See It to Believe It" didn't have an answer... only the same perplexed look on his face that I had. He then said maybe it's a fairy. He said that? Yes he did! I'm sure he said it for my amusement, but I grinned with glee at the real possibility that yes, indeed, it was a fairy. 

From then on I started believing more than I ever had before, and my belief was strengthened every time I walked outside onto the lawn in the morning to find a ring of mushrooms that weren't there the day before.”