It is a dark and gloomy day… inside and out. The news is bad, friends are going through tough times, the weather is screwed up, and everything is playing merry hell with my moods. As is usual for late January, there is a cloud over the Valley that feels like a giant hand clapped a lid on and is pressing down tight.
I come downstairs in the dark, and I light a candle on the coffee table. Then I light another one—the little tea light that’s inside the fairy house sitting next to the candle. “Apple Bowl Cottage” has been to a couple of art shows this winter, but it didn’t find a new home yet. Maybe that’s just as well; I needed it today.
I sip my coffee, enjoying the soft glow of the candlelight, then I turn on the big light and write in my journal for a while. By now, there is daylight outside, such as it is. Not much of it (did I mention Lid-on-the-Valley weather?). But it’s time for breakfast, so I blow out the candle.
And in those two seconds that I watch the smoke curl out of the chimney of the fairy house, I have a sudden flash of Story.
The fairies turned off their lights, I think, and they’re off to work. No, actually, they don’t go to work outside of home; the fairy that lives in this house is getting ready for her day of cooking and washing and making apple pies. She turned off the light because it’s bright enough outside now she doesn’t need the lamp. I wonder what she’s going to do today? I think after she’s turned the apples in the bowl into a pie, she might be looking forward to reading her book; she just got to the best part yesterday.
And just like that, the world has become brighter. Warmer. Safer.
I don’t know her name, the little fairy that lives in the tiny ceramic cottage on my coffee table today. But the light shining from her little home, and the warm smoke curling from the chimney, has cheered my day. There is still a Lid on the Valley and bad things in the news, but I’ve been reminded of joy and warmth and comfort and whimsy and brightness.
And those are as real as anything else.
Life, the Universe, and Apple Bowl Cottage. The comfort of Story.
PS: Yes, Apple Bowl Cottage is for sale, and I think the fairy would be very happy to move to your house (and I’d be happy to share her)! If you’re interested send me a message, here.