This Week’s Bit of String: Fairies of all sorts
Last week my entire family stayed together in a lakeside house in Maine. This included my 5-year-old niece, who moved expertly from one of us to the next, with wide-eyed invitations for our attention and imaginative assignations for us.
“Want to pretend you’re my mommy and I’m a toddler?” she asked me one morning. I was hardly about to turn that down.
Later on, she had my brother-in-law at her command in the role of big brother, while her own big brother (actual age 6) was her little brother. She’d gone from being a toddler to being 13 and a half, and her name was Lily Pad. My kiddo’s fiancee was now her mommy, and I was briefly a co-worker. My niece’s job was testing beds, which after various hikes and kayak-paddles and swims, I was more than willing to help with.
In the evening, we all gathered in lawn chairs to watch the sun set over the lake. Then my niece invited me to sit on the dock with her, dangling our feet in “Waterworld.”
She told me, “Sometimes if I need a moment, and I tell my mom I want to go to Waterworld, then I come here and you’re the fairy who meets me. You’re the fairy for people who need to take a moment, so they can talk to you and not be lonely, and you won’t tell anyone.”
I couldn’t have been prouder than when she led me back to the rest of our family, now doggedly roasting marshmallows around a campfire despite the 30 C/ 90 F heat, and she introduced me as The Moment Fairy.
Ongoing Stories
When I was in second grade, our teacher read us the 1953 chapter book Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett, about a witch’s daughter who would prefer to be a fairy. This book had me convinced I, too, was a secret fairy, and I eagerly assigned the role of captor witch to whichever family member incurred my unspoken wrath.
It might be my mother for making me drink my orange juice even though I said it tasted sour, or my little brother for faking naps and then being allowed to stay up later than me. If you think these reasons are far-fetched, wait till you hear my solution.
I was certain that if I woke up at the right time, and went into my closet with the correct numbers on my little calculator, then the fairies would rescue me. I tried it once and it didn’t work, but I figured I needed a different moment of the night.
Nothing really dissuaded me from that story. It dissolved into new fantasies I nursed in my imagination. Similarly, in my niece’s game, she was constantly accommodating new roles for us. While most were outside making s’mores, she led my husband by the hand through the holiday house.
“He’s the Show-You-Something Fairy,” she explained when I went in for extra ingredients.
Sure enough, she was picking up various objects and explaining them to her engineer uncle as if he’d just materialised from a fantastical dimension (it probably seems as if we do, appearing once a year from the UK). The Something she was Showing him as I went back outside was a flyswatter.
Moments to Remember
I was inspired by my niece’s imaginative efforts, and moved by her confidence that at any given time, at least one of us would want to duck into her world. As she gets older, she will desperately need a variety of people she can slip away and have a moment with. She’ll have so many things to show and explain to us.
Sometimes, as I wrote a couple weeks ago, I worry about my stories getting stuck in my head and progressing no further. But while I value being a writer and long for success, my roles as mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt are more important. It’s nice to remember that I serve some purpose there, and it’s truly a privilege to do so.
For now, the fairies have flown. Back in the UK, I’m the Moment Fairy for myself. I have to keep going, finding ways to be present from afar for my family while remaining present in the life I sought elsewhere. It means choosing which of the dozens of times I think of them each day are the most valuable to pass on. That’s the challenge, when we’re not rubbing up against each other regularly and experiencing life together.
Sometimes, separation hurts too much. Maybe it’s a pleasant evening with no extra family to share it with, when I have no one to bake for but my husband and me, when it’s warm but there’s no place to swim. I miss the feel of a little hand in mine so much. It’s tempting to dig myself into chores or into writing assignments, but maybe I should surrender to those moments, too, to keep my caring fully kindled.
Which moments matter most to you? How do you make the best of them?