poukledden

I've always wanted to find a way into Faery.

One of my favorite Tolkien stories has nothing to do with Middle Earth -- it's "The Smith of Wootton Major," one of the delightful fairy tales he wrote over the years. From the first time I read that story as a kid, I loved it with a mad crazy passion. The idea of a badge, as it were, that gained one entrance into Faery. Damn, that was cool. Beyond cool.

The story had it all -- magic, "accidents" that are anything but, incredible wanderings through a Faery that is beautiful, terrifying, bewildering, always one step past our understanding. It had that sense of loss -- the boy, now a man, comes to a point where he has to pass on the gift, and forever forsake Faery.

In so many ways, I spent my childhood looking for that entrance, that way in, that badge or secret handshake that would get me past the gates. Really, I spent my childhood in my head, in make believe and pretend. On family hikes I'd amuse myself silently imagining that we weren't tracking up another boring trail, towards yet anotther inevitable encounter with a flower/rock/squirrel that the Donor would spend hours and days taking a perfectly precise and perfectly soulless picture of. No, we were hobbits tramping towards Mordor, or a band of adventurers seeking for the Caves of Chaos (the car, way back at whatever parking area/turn off we had left it at, was the Keep on the Borderlands. You know you're old school D&D if you laugh at that). Wait, did I say "we?" I meant, me and my imaginary pals, whoever they were for that adventure. The family didn't figure into it, certainly not the Donor.

I've always had this thing about otherworlds. Whether it's exotic alien worlds or fantasy realms or Faery, I've wanted it to be real, wanted to go there, wanted to step out of this reality and into another. Narnia, Nehwon, Middle Earth, Faery, you name it, I wanted to there. A lot of my favorite stories involve that idea, whether it's stories of people in Newford stepping into otherworlds just down the street, or Jack Flanders finding floating cities of crystal or alternate Montreals.

I think, in part, it has to do with an odd thing that, honestly, I've never shared with many people -- one or two at most, and I'm not sure that anyone in my family is on that list.

I see things.

No, not like that. What I mean is -- I see thoughts. Mine, mind you. And not clearly. But it's always there, like background noise. The best way I can describe it is that it's like a collage of moving images, dimly seen, easily ignored, ghostly images on the periphery of the periphery that I can bring into focus if I want to, just for a few seconds, before they skitter off into something else. As a kid, this entertained me enormously. White walls were a goldmine of entertainment. Always those ghost possibilities playing before me, and so small a step to the desire to jump into those swirling worlds.

Of course, otherworlds, Faery, it's not always wine and roses. Perhaps it's the time of year that has me in an odd, reflective mood -- it's almost a year since the official Break Down that led to this wild year of growth and reborn hope in my life, an artificial but powerful waypoint at which to assess and ponder and wonder. So much good to be proud of, so much more to be done, a continued awareness of the deep wounds I dug into my heart over the years, of the darkness into which I walked and have yet to free myself from completely. And I wonder (Phantastes-inspired, George MacDonald always there to provide the metaphors of my life) about that darkness, and what Faery it might still fate me to see. I know, in large part, that whatever success I've managed in this past year has been because I refused, finally and at last, to believe anything but this: I am not scarred past redemption, whatever it may feel like at times. Maybe, just maybe, that means that I'll be able to look on the vistas of Faery, free of terror and horror and darkness, if only for a moment, before it is my turn to pass the Star on with a bittersweet smile.