Living the fairy tale

It happens to all of us at one time or another. We are sitting under a tree or in your car......and BAM! You remember.  You remember what life was like as you  romped through gardens or in my case the piney woods with all their mystery and foreboding invitations. Maybe it was a smell or sound, but suddenly you are transported back through time. Back to where it all began. When the you in you became you.

As a child, there were many rules in the Dawson house.  There was also an two volume accompanying series of Lectures and Sermons on the rules of the Dawson house.  I can recite most from memory. But there was one rule, once broken guaranteed you being locked up in the dungeon with the fearsome dragon- not coming home when the street light came on.

If you could abide that simple rule or be visibly running toward the house you were fine.  Your afternoons and weekends of roaming the woods and bayous with fairies and elves could continue.  A life filled with pirate adventures, wars between evil kings and valiant princes unfolded daily. Break it and the desolation would set in. A depression like no other. Until you discovered the screen on the dungeon could popped out and you could escape and...... I can't reveal everything.YET!

Maybe you didn't create such a fantastical childhood for yourself.  I did. I was the only girl on a street of boys. There were five us. Me and 4 boys.  Kinda like now...  Jeremy, Grant, Collin, and Brandon. Each completely different. Each with an imagination beyond anything Paramount and Warner Bros. has seen.

For the most part though, it was the three musketeers- me, Jeremy and Grant.

The adventures were grand. Thwart with danger and there was never a damsel in distress or a princess who needed rescuing.  There was a however a princess who was so skilled she saved the day and rescued the prince. I was wondering when I became I feminist..... now you know too.

Do you have those childhood friends? Do your children have those childhood friends? Friendships that stand the test of changing homerooms, opposing teams, and changing schools?

Did you ever think that living the fairy tale was important? Not the fairy tale, where the handsome prince comes and they live happily ever after.  No THE fairy tale.  The one where every one is special and has a purpose and a special gift only they can wield?  The one where the hero grows as a person and forges relationships and friendships that will last for all eternity? That fairy tale.

I have forgotten so much of my childhood and the games and the antics that I was involved in- and there were many.  But lately, as I have taken a step back and starting removing the extraneous and remembering who I was, I have remembered.

Oh the stories I could tell you!! The fairies that carved out special hiding places just for the three of us in the front of the ligustrums- the right side was easier to get in and out of.  The amazing Oriental garden with the fish and little temple with the strange fat naked man....and the popcorn and m&m balls made with such love by the White Queen that you could taste the magic inside.

With all the busy schedules and the neighborhoods where no one plays outside and children riding bikes in groups clearly must gangs and up to no good, have we forgotten to provide the fairy tale?

Have we forgotten to let our children roam? To be free? And yes that's right roam right out of our line of sight and... Play. Create. Imagine. Explore. Have amazing friendships.

I try really hard to create the fairy tale in my little suburban village.  The boys and I talk about the princess who is constantly trapped by evil people and made to work all the time.  "Quick Jack, get the Lightsaber and the wand. We will need both in order to cut her free! The Apple is sucking her will to live."  Hmmmm. There was a time when I might have worked a little to much and my children in their fairy tale land saw what I couldn't see....

Amazing the lens of a child's mind's eye...  It perceives what others can not.

Today ask your children what they think you do all day.  Ask them who their best friends are. Talk to them about your best friends. Tell them some of the fantastical stories about your childhood.  Don't let geography or a clock keep your children from being children.  In the 21st century, we have to work a little harder as the guardians of the fairy tale to keep it alive.  We have to help our children be children and experience wonder on their own.

As for me.... I see my new children's series developing as I write this.  I would love to change the names to protect the guilty, but when you can find me a name that rolls off the tongue in complete agitation with a hint of whine like JEERREMMMY. I'll change it.

Live your fairy tale this week. Leave some of your childhood stories here.