26 days. 26 things you never knew about fairies. My vacation transformed me from a suburban snob into a true believer. Fairies know their business -- and ours. Watch out.
If my camera took photos of what I really saw, there would be about fifteen fairies in this picture. When the morning chores were done, everyone got together at this itty bitty stream and played. I had to pack up my things. Really, all that included was the iPad which somehow was able to shrink to fun size along with me on my first day. So, since I've been trying to capture my impressions with a photo or two every day, I snapped this one. If any of the fairies actually appeared in the photo, Thumbelina would be on the far right making a monster face I showed her how to do -- like I taught my little sister at age four.
I didn't really expect that the fairies would show up in the photo. They never have before. Why would they now?
Then, suddenly, I realized something.
I'm still human -- although I may be temporarily very small.
Why not have someone take a photo of me with my fairy makeup and little wings?
Here's what Thumbelina got:
Self Portrait In Absentia
I'm hovering above the stream with a goofy smile on my face, and posed sort of like a star fish. Like a big "Surprise!" type posture. Only, as you can see . . . or rather, as you can't see -- I am about as invisible as any of the fairies.
I guess what I wrote before about fairies shrinking down to tiny sizes when humans are around was nothing but a outsider's beginning assumption. We really can't see them. At all. Maybe they have been shrinking down only when I'm around and full-sized humans come into the area. Or maybe It's just a safety precaution in case certain humans have a different kind of vision. Who knows?
There's so much I learned about fairies in the last month, and at the same time, there are hundreds of questions still waiting for answers. There are thousands of other questions I haven't even begun to imagine I could ask. It's so disappointing I have to go back home tomorrow. I'll never get the chance to think up those questions and ask them.
So, in case my iPad doesn't grow back to normal size, or in case I'm too busy to blog on the last day of June, here's my summary of the most important lessons fairies taught me:
Being around someone new is great fun. You don't have to try so hard to impress a fairy because she has probably already decided to like you.
Getting the work done doesn't have to feel painful. Fairies get up and do their chores because that's what life is built of. They enjoy the part of their life I call "work" as much as the part I call "play."
Having something to look forward to (or something to dread) keeps life interesting. Still, the future events I anticipate are totally separate from the happiness of a normal moment along the way.
Now, here are some of the less important things I learned:
Lightening: it's good for fairies, bad for people. (See D for Drool entry.)
Badgers can't really hurt a fairy, but seeing an ill-tempered badger scared out of his wits is about the funniest thing they can imagine. (Also D - day.)
Fairies think lame human jokes are hilarious. (S - day.)
An orb is the best sleeping arrangement in the universe. Better than a bed. Better than a hammock. Better than any sleeping bag, futon, or yoga mat. (See Y- day. I think.)
Watching another person disintegrate seems a lot less traumatic when you figure out the change isn't permanent. (U - day.)
Fairy makeup is permanent, but fairy hairdos aren't. My own hair will probably never be the same, but I'm going to keep all the makeup I've got right where it is.
Fairies hardly eat anything because their most commonly seen "fun size" form is not their real body size. Intrinsically, fairies are the size of a bean. I was the biggest glutton in the grove even though I never blogged about it. Maybe back at home, I can fill in a few more details.
Hummingbirds may be fast, but Thumbelina's really going to kick some birdy tail when she has her big race next month. (H - day post.)
Size is relative. Shape is unimportant.
This is about the best vacation ever. Making new friends, learning new attitudes, helping out around the grove, and enjoying the natural setting did more for me than a good laugh does for Thumbelina. I'll probably feel great for a whole year just because of my fairy vacation.
And, since I know how much it means to my buddy, here's a little message:
"Thumbelina, I'll be eternally grateful for all the fun we've had together. Thanks for being my friend."
-- Sabrina
I had a great time being your guide. Who knows? If I keep reading magazines in the doctors offices I visit, maybe I'll figure out a way to make vacations like this into a fairy industry -- sort of like a miniature eco-tourism package. I doubt the queen would ever go for that. Still, it's fun to think about.
When fairies are giving each other directions, they have to know the same concepts. Me? I just tell people an address and they use maquest -- or I give them a few cross streets, say right or left a few times, and they find me pretty easily.
When you're in a grove, things are totally different.
Remember how people always used to talk about Eskimos having different names for the kinds of snow and the condition of the snow? It helps them describe places.
Fairies have about a billion words for bark. The describe it by color, height on the plant, condition, age, and amount of sap. Probably other things also. But they have a single word for any kind of bark. Like, the smooth white bark on the white tree in the photo below would have one word for the main part of the trunk at five feet high, and a different word for the same kind of bark thirty feet up. A third word would describe the bark on a hornizontal branch on the same tree. A fourth word describes the bark on the roots that you can see. There's also words for the bark below ground. The dark colored bark in the photo has different words altogether.
It's totally bewildering.
Maybe Bewildering should have been my B word today.
The only reason I mention it is I waited around for maybe an hour because I thought Thumbelina told me to meet her at the tree with the rough bark horizontally oriented near ground level (schplutzitch.) The tree I found is below.
What Thumbelina really said was to meet her at the mottled bark oriented vertically about six feet up with new leaves sprouting (schpluschich.)
She was late for her olympic training (or at least, that's why I call it.) Thumbelina waited for an hour at the tree shown above before she figured out my mistake and came to find me.
I'm so bummed. (That's also a great B word.)
When you add in the fact that many trees have proper names, and their bark has to be modified with an -ip suffix followed by the name ("Schpluschich-ip Steve" for example) you can see how confusing it gets. A novice would spend a lot of time getting lost.
I've only got two more days to help Thumbelina train for her hummingbird races (see H post.) After that, she's on her own again. I doubt I'll even find out the results of her race once I'm among humans again. I mean, it's not too likely to be televised or shown on a live internet feed. So, on the day of midsummer's games, I'll just be thinking of her. It's about as bad as the days when people had to wait for letters in the mail to find anything out. Actually it's worse. I don't even get to keep in touch by mail.
I guess I'm just a little blue (another great B word) because the vacation is ending soon, and I let my friend down.
I hope Thumbelina's poppies always pout perfectly.
-- Sabrina
I'm a little blue, too. It's not the kind of thing a lightening bolt or a good laugh can fix, either. I think having Sabrina in the grove made everything seem more interesting than any other summer. She's fun to talk to. I like teaching her different fairy skills. Or, at least, the ones she can handle given that the transformation has limitations. She's become a really good friend. Maybe we can make her an honorary fairy and she can print out a little certificate for herself when she gets home.
Thumbelina mentioned that gratitude is a major part of fairy life. I was running out of letters and needed a way to work that concept in. So, during the morning opening of flowers, I interviewed her pretty thoroughly about why she wrote that.
Compensation is about the best way I could describe it (with the letters of the alphabet I still have left.)
Fairies don't work for money. A few of them understand the human system of money, but none of them think it's any good. Fairies do what they need to so that things can keep going -- and improving. When there's something wrong in the natural world, they just step in and do something about it. Sometimes it has to be organized by the queen -- like the addition of dust and helper yeasts for the slime mold in the area. Sometimes, it's a small job -- like a fairy seeing that if a leaf fell a few inches to the left, it would provide fertilizer for the soil rather than falling on the sidewalk and doing no good at all. She'll give her wings a flick in that direction, and the leaf falls as it should. It's almost automatic. No matter if the work is big or small, though, if a fairy is in the area, the world is going to be a better place.
The first question in a fairy's mind is, "How can I improve this?"
The question I asked her was, "But what do you get out of it?"
Thumbelina's answer? Abundance. That's the largest part of their satisfaction. When a grove abounds. When nature has a lot of fecundity (my new favorite word.) That's what they live for.
Gratitude is the second part of it.
Creatures with the ability to be grateful show that they are glad the fairies came by -- even if they're not aware that it was a fairy that helped them. To see a smile from a child, or a wag from a dog when things have gone right -- that's the other half of the fairy's paycheck.
When a fairy is feeling low she seeks gratitude.
Think about the stories you have heard. The good-hearted human gets help from the fairy in disguise. The human enjoys success beyond any of her expectations, and then shows huge amounts of gratitude. That's how the fairy perks up. Thumbelina explained that the energy of sincere gratitude is even better than a lightening blast for fixing up a drooping fairy.
Abundance makes fairies happy
Gratitude rocks the fairies' world
It's only when gratitude fails that a fairy takes time to wreak havoc in a person's life. For instance, there's that story about diamonds coming from one girl's mouth and toads coming from another girl's mouth. The first girl was naturally inclined to be sweet -- and grateful. She got lovely rewards. The other was sarcastic and bitter. She obviously got punished for having spent so much time punishing the world. Plus, if the fairy needed a second dose of gratitude to feel completely well, and then got only negativity -- that would tend to sour a mood, now, wouldn't it?
Well, my time as a tourist is going to end this week. I don't even have to fake my gratitude. Thumbelina has been such a good friend to me. She has tried to understand my many hang-ups. She helped me escape when I was too embarrassed to live with myself. She helped me get the rest I needed when I was worn out. She's fun to talk to, and she has a great sense of style. I've had the time of my life here.
So, for the record: even though I sounded crabby at first, getting to know Thumbelina is one of my favorite experiences of all time.
Thanks, Thumbelina (or should I write "Fresh") for being my friend. You're awesome.
Guess what a side effect of nerve damage from a lightening blast is? The ability to drool non-stop. It has been a full day since my close call with the bolt of lightening, and I can almost hear normally. The ringing in my ears is down to a low kind of background music. It's the most annoying background music in the world. I'm thinking it will go away pretty soon, though.
The drool?
I have no idea when that will go away.
I woke up in the miserable nook I have used as my bedroom, and the first thing I saw was a dark stain all the way down the rock wall. I must have been drooling all night. I was totally dehydrated from it, too. When I woke up, stretched, flexed my wings, and adjusted my sizzled hair, I also had to wipe off my cheek to prepare for the work of the morning. I had to chug about a tablespoon of water. And as you know, for a person who is fun sized, that's really saying something.
Then, all day long, I had to keep wiping off my chin.
This is totally un cool.
Back at the office, I'd be sent home -- and then people would be laughing behind my back for about a month. I'd probably get a nickname out of it, too.
"You remember Sabrina, don't you? The one who drooled? We called her Grendel."
On a day like this, I can just be glad I'm not at work. There's something to be said for being on vacation when you have your most embarrassing moments.
-- Sabrina
We encountered the same badger Sabrina mentioned in one of her earlier posts. This one has always been foul-natured. He always raises his hackles, and charges at anyone who comes close. It's really not a problem for fairies. We can fly, you know. It was only a problem for Sabrina that one day when her wing muscles were too sore to fly, and I had to distract the badger so it wouldn't chomp her down in one gulp. Sabrina wasn't thinking so clearly that day, and didn't remember she could still chose any size she liked. Even the angriest badger in the world isn't going to attack a person the size of an elephant, right?
This hollow log is next to the badger's hole. He's got a personality disorder. Most fairies think it's best to leave him alone.
Well, back to the encounter today. Since Sabrina wasn't flying quite straight in the morning, she decided to walk out and meet me at the flower opening assignment we had first. The badger found her. She actually wasn't walking too straight either. Plus, her hair looked -- well, strange.
Sabrina wasn't in any mood to be pestered by a badger, no matter how aggressive he tries to be. She turned around and yelled right back at him. With the frizzly hair, the copious drool, and the staggering around, the badger actually got spooked. He's old enough to have seen rabies a few times. Sabrina showed all the classic signs.
You should have seen the old fellow. He closed his yap, turned straight around and ran back down his hole as if the forest was on fire.
I laughed until I was blue.
-- Fresh
PS. May your periwinkle tickle you pink.
It's later. The drooling has tapered off some. As long as I remember to swallow every few seconds, I look a lot closer to normal. Having that crotchety badger scurry off like that was actually one of the happiest moments of this whole vacation. I also laughed until I was blue.
When you're fun sized, the entire experience can be terrifying. Who am I kidding? It's terrifying at any size.
The home tree never gets hit by lightning.
The one next to it wasn't so lucky.
I was about fifty feet away from the blast. My ears are still ringing. For one brief moment, I saw everything in ultraviolet. Thumbelina's dramatic UV make-up, the markings on flowers. Even a faint glow where a passing fox marked a tree this morning. I can't say having a single moment of ultra violet vision was worth it for the bone-rattling I got.
If I ever thought my hair would go back to normal, I'm going to just have to abandon that hope. It's not only puffy, like a fairy's. Now it's frizzy and a little smelly from being singed.
Thumbelina disagrees.
Of course.
She says the lightning blast was just what she needed. I don't know what for. About the time she started to explain, my ears took on a melody all their own. A lot like a fifty-foot wine glass being rubbed by a giant finger. Rinnnnnnng. It's continuous. It probably won't stop until next week.
My fingers can still type, but that's about it.
This was NOT a good day.
-- Sabrina
Afternoon thunder storms are a pleasure for the fairies. I'm so sad Sabrina had a different reaction. I'll let her rest up for now. Maybe she'll feel better tomorrow.
Here's a shout out to all those things we wish we could keep far far away from our human homes.
Spores
Molds
Fungus
Bacteria
Yeasts
Thumbelina took me to see the slime mold in the grove. It was absolutely disgusting -- at least from a human point of view. Really. It's slimy and it's moldy. What could be more disgusting than that?
So, Thumbelina was smiling and fluttering around the slime mold like it was a long lost friend. She talked only in fairy to it -- or something else completely. Whatever language she used, it was absolutely foreign to me. The other unusual thing was the length of time her conversation took. Not that she said a lot. Just that she talked sooooooo s s l l l l l l ooooooooowwww. Really slowly. There was plenty of listening, too. I guess fairy ears pick up slime mold discussions either above or below my range of hearing.
She kept going from patch to patch of mold, and smiling.
I would have called the looney bin. Only she had prepared me. She said, "This could take all morning. You won't understand a word of what I say, either. Don't worry. I'll fill you in on everything once I'm done."
So, as we flew away, Thumbelina summarized. The slime mold was working on a project to fertilize the entire grove, and was on schedule to have nutrients equally distributed before the first frost. This was good for the grove because it meant more fecundity in spring. (Yes, I did have to look up 'fecundity' later. It means the state of being fertile.) Thumbelina had offered to place rotting fruit in key spots to help the slime mold achieve its goals. It mentioned that helper yeasts would also be appreciated. She promised to try, but she has to speak to the queen about that.
"So, we go to the home tree next?" I asked.
"Of course not. We have some other fungus to speak to. I have to give a complete report."
So, although a slime mold might be considered fungus-like, (it reproduces partly by spores, and partly by being gooey,) we had a conference with normal looking mushrooms.
Thumbelina didn't actually speak. She felt things, and inspected the under sides of the caps of the mushrooms. She sat down on one, and sang a song I had never heard before. Then, she closed her eyes and waited.
I sat on a smaller mushroom, nearby, and tried to be very "at one" with nature. All I got was warm eyelids from having the sun shine on them while my eyes were closed.
When I opened my eyes, Thumbelina was staring at me.
"What?" I asked.
"Are you ready to go?"
"Yep."
"Good. You're really bothering that mushroom, and it's too polite to mention it directly."
Bothering it?
Oh man. I didn't know if I really wanted to ask. But I had to.
"What about me was bothering the mushroom?" I asked as we flew away.
"Oh, the blood flow of a human is pretty loud. The mushroom couldn't hear the discussion I was having with the rest of the group. For that particular mushroom, it was like it had an iPod set to bagpipe music on full blast during an important political summit."
Thumbelina really has a way of putting things in terms I can understand.
Of course, understanding it, and feeling good about it are two different things. I have a grating type of pulse in my backside, I guess. I had better keep that in mind the next time I'm involved in a political summit.
"What did you find out about these mushrooms?" I asked.
"Conditions have been less than optimal for them this year. We might not have as many fairy rings if they can't get the bacterial support they need."
"And what will it take to get bacterial support?"
"Oh, more moisture to decay the leaves. Maybe a little more dust in the air. I'll talk it over with the queen. She knows how to handle these things. She's been doing it since before I was born. Really, I'm just a messenger."
"So, now do we go back to the tree?"
"It's not a complete report unless I have all the non-limbed life forms in my census."
That was a new concept. A tree or a bush has limbs, just like a human or a fairy. Thumbelina was interviewing ALL non-limbed life forms in the grove today? This could take a while.
"Are you going to shrink down and talk to bacteria colonies?"
Thumbelina giggled. "No. I talk to bacterias all the time. They're the easy ones. All fairies are in more or less continual contact with our bacterias. It's like you're aware of the birds around you. It doesn't take a huge effort to watch them and know what they're up to -- they'll either sing it or show it minute by minute."
Actually, I don't pay that much attention to birds in my normal life I might start, though.
"So, next we visit?" I prodded.
"Well, there are five separate kinds of yeasts. I have to get some equipment for that. Then, I just make sure I have a sample of each kind. In a forest this size, all the yeasts are going to say more or less the same things."
"Fascinating," I said. Inwardly, though, my head was starting to spin.
"I've also got the true molds left and a few microbes you wouldn't know the names for."
"Is there any way I can help?" I asked.
"Not really."
This was pretty aggravating. I'd be following a fairy around, listening to or watching stuff I could never understand or help with. Thumbelina must have sensed my frustration.
"If you have a blog entry to write, I could meet you back at the nook before training," she offered.
"I guess that would work," I replied. "If I can help, just let me know, though."
"Don't worry about it," she said.
Without another syllable, she was off to fetch her yeast equipment.
Maybe I should have followed. Instead, I flew to a nearby town, grew into human size, and spent the rest of the morning at the library. I researched slime molds. It's tantalizing to find out what humans actually do know about them. I found some awesome articles, and a couple of funny YouTube clips. If we could get a few scientists together with a fairy census worker, I bet the advances would be impressive. The inter-connectedness of the micro-world with the plants in a grove, and the fairies that coordinate everything is a kind of cooperation we humans could really learn from. My internet search led me to a YouTube clip where slime molds actually re-created a map of the Canadian Highway system. So, here's links to the best of what I found. Link #3 is the time-lapse movie of the slime mold highway.
How did I explain my fancy fairy outfit to the librarian? Easy. I was on break from a preschool play day -- where the teachers were working on a theme of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Nobody batted an eye.
I can't guarantee that when I get back home I won't bleach my bathrooms into sterile submission. I will, however, try to keep an open mind about the microscopic world. Who knows? Eventually, my blood stream might be the kind of music a fungus would want to hear.
-- Sabrina
Since Sabrina seems so interested in results, I'll give you a run down of what I told the queen. The slime molds of this grove are actually part of a larger organism stretching ten miles one direction and maybe eight miles in another -- but don't get the impression a slime mold would ever assume the shape of a square. Those are just the farthest reaches of it. It is pleased with the year's distribution of nutrients, and it is making sure these nutrients are distributed well. We're lucky it moved in. Before our grove had slime molds, the fecundity of the grove wasn't nearly as good. The yeasts all say movement is easy with the current air currents, and most mammals and reptiles seem to be in good health. The only "blip" they notice is a patch of tar which causes localized problems for plants and animals. We already knew about that. One of the nearby highways is being resurfaced. Wet tar is something of a sticky issue for a grove. The bacteria, of course, multiply as needed, and decompose whatever they can get moisture enough to decompose. The true molds are struggling a little this season. They prefer a much wetter summer. The large fungus population seems well able to adapt to this slightly dry summer. They'll go ahead and make spores once the fairy ring season is over.
Now, I've got to get back to training. I hope to be able to win the hummingbird races on behalf of this grove at the games. Then, for next year, I'll suggest to the queen back in my own grove that human friends are a great boost for training. Maybe she'll consider it and maybe she won't. Nobody wants to throw the balance of fairy and humming bird relations too far out of balance.
I know for a long time, I've been talking about the grove. It's about time I fill in what I've learned from a lot of listening over the last three weeks.
A grove can be big or little. It doesn't actually have to be filled with trees. There are city groves with no trees at all. There are arctic groves, too. Only, I've never asked what kind of chores a fairy colony would do in a spot where it's so cold. Desert groves, ocean groves, and even manufacturing groves. Ecologists would talk about biomes or ecosystems, maybe. Fairies have a different way of thinking. A grove is big or little, depending on the amount of work needed. There's a central location where the queen lives. She focuses the work of a collection of females. I suspect they also shelter infants of both male and female fairies in the central spot, but that's hardly something they'd want to talk about with an outsider. The fairies are organized, given work in the support of whatever life forms exist in the grove.
In a grove, fairies make things abound. (See my last post. Abound is a pretty important fairy word.)
Here's my grove. Watch it abound.
Once I even heard someone mention she had been a toaster fairy in Cleveland for a while.
Really?
I know when I go home, I'll appreciate my toast so much more, knowing such things are possible. I'm sure it gives a fairy huge satisfaction to make toast abound.
The queen allots the chores by age and ability. She also watches out for the health of each individual, and the development of their skills. She's like the best mother anyone could want. At least, the queen in our grove reminds me of an excellent mother.
There are other positions with a standardized title, but they don't really make sense unless you see the fairy doing her job. For instance: the scrub, the plotz, and the wracker make up a team of fairies. The words for the job titles are standard from grove to grove. Humans would need a huge job description sheet if we applied to be scrub, plotz, or wracker. Fairies just know what these do. Scrub identifies blemishes to the surface of any living object (and doesn't actually scrub at these blemishes -- just points them out.) Plotz determines which action should be taken with regard to blemishes (and many times the choice of no action is the decision.) Wracker makes recommendations about work party allotments. It's kind of a like a quality control team.
Makes me wonder if during my teen years, the scrub was lax about locating my zits, or the plots just didn't think it was important to make them go away. Or, the wracker may have recommended a battalion of fairies visit me in my sleep, but the queen decided that the drooping houseplants were a more worthy need in the grove of my suburban neighborhood. Whatever was going on, I think the quality control team should have tried a little harder to get me the help I needed.
Those quality control ladies are only an example. The point, though, is that fairies know there's order in their universe. Their skills are used. They do their work happily. They know what they're doing is important.
I kind of wish my world made as much sense to me.
-- Sabrina
Reading what Sabrina wrote, I'm perplexed. She sounds sort of wistful. Is her problem that she doesn't have work in her human world? Or possibly that it's not a work of cooperation and growth? Does she feel as though her skills are not being developed? Perhaps that she can't see the end of her labors? Is being human really an isolated thing, of is that Sabrina only? So many questions I have, now. Maybe I'll have to be a human tourist sometime soon. Sabrina should have chosen GRATITUDE for her "g" word. It's vital in fairy life. Maybe down the road, she'll find time to include the concept. May your forsythia flourish. -- Fresh
