The Experiment: Day 128 ~ The Awakening: On Returning To The Land Of Enchantment…

This is the post I was trying to write yesterday. It wasn’t time. I needed to hold it in my heart and then let go, let it be what it needed to be, not try so hard. Finally, last night, I let go, I let it drift through my dreams, today I am ready.

Yesterday I felt as though I was supposed to write about being more playful, moving out of so much darkness for so long into the light has led me into the incredible lightness of being once again. A time of remembering what it feels like to feel the sun on my skin, to return to the knowing that love is all around if we have eyes to see and a heart that is, finally, open again. And all this is good, but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t right. And when I started to write by asking “Are you playful?” I next wrote, “I am not. It is a problem.” I felt as though I had never been playful, but that simply isn’t true.

As I  moved through the hours yesterday I came to the stunning realization of just how very playful and magical a person I had been. All of my life really. Through it all. I am the person who bought a house, this house, because there was a Magic Ship in the back yard. I am absolutely serious. At some point in time some father had built a truly giant, life-sized ship for his children. The whole inside was like a playhouse. The real estate ad had actually said, “Have your friends over for a party on your very own ship.” Seriously? I had to see that house. And I did. And there really was a huge ship in the back corner of the yard looking, for all intents and purposes, as if it were about to take off into the sky to magical lands. Of course it was grey and the paint was peeling off and to most people it looked dreadful, something that needed to be torn down. But me, oh no, those people had no “scope for the imagination” as Anne of Green Gables would have said. The owners had been trying to sell it for 2 years. I had looked at much nicer houses, but this house had a ship! I bought it! This was my house! I had the ship restored and repainted — hot pink, orchid, and bright orange. I had the yellow slide torn off that was hanging from one side and had a staircase built. And I had two picket fenced gardens made, lime green and hot pink, and had the two sheds painted in the same colors. People who came here said my garden looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, and they were right!

And you can see, in the left corner of this picture “The Wild Flamingo Wood.” I found a length of 1800’s Victorian iron fencing with the glorious gate in a junk yard and put it around a section of the woods and filled it with 25 pink flamingos. I said it was dangerous to go back there. It delighted people no end.

And there were giant roosters and glass fairy houses everywhere big enough for a rose to grow inside. There were gnomes and all manner of magical things. There were fairy lights everywhere. It was truly a wonderland. But on February the 4th, 2014, after an ice storm that caused flooding from my ceiling through the house, which required big units to be put in the house to try to dry it out, which caused an electrical fire due to old aluminum wiring, my house burned down. And one week later, in another terrible ice storm, a huge tree fell across the Magic Ship and crushed it. And after 8 months of living elsewhere while the house was rebuilt, over a terribly hot summer, with no one here to tend the garden, almost everything died or was choked out with weeds. And the ship had to be torn down and carted off, and I returned, in autumn after the fire, and it was a sad mess back here. And a year later when I was going to try to sell the house I had a crew come in and cart everything else off. All the magical garden art and tools and the Victorian fencing and the flamingos, everything, all carted off. Then it really was a barren landscape. It was as if I had never been here, as if the garden had never existed. I could hardly bear it and never went outside except to get the dogs out briefly. I had once created an enormous, magical garden and now I couldn’t even go back there.

What happened? Well, I suppose, in my mind, in creating all of this, finally, at 55, in the first and only house I had ever bought on my own in my life, my beloved Dragonfly Cottage, the dreams of 15 years were all made manifest, and it was glorious. The night of the fire, as they say, and pardon me, “Shit got real.” There was no more magic, there was destruction, loss, and, after the fire and all of my resources in every direction were lost, it became solely about survival. And there is no magic in losing your beloved home, financial security, medical insurance, the ability to continue to see the doctors you’d seen for 20 years, and worrying about how you would survive at all. And then years worth of the most crippling dire depression when you no longer had the will to even live, there is no place for magic in all of that. It was a time when everything that had been in glorious color returned to black and white with grey all over, a time when I just didn’t care anymore. Enchantment? What the hell was that?

I know some of you are thinking, “Good Lord, is she ever going to stop writing about the fire?” Well, first of all, let me tell you something. For anyone who has ever lived through such an event you know that it is such a devastating, life-changing, terrible event you will never completely get over it and 4 years is nothing! BUT I am now writing about it for contrast, because I have come, finally, out of the darkness and into the light. And I have to talk about how it was then, during that awful bleak time post-fire, to show you how unbelievably amazing my life is now. I haven’t just survived it, I am returning to my true nature, a nature that lived in color, and imagination, and light, and life! And yes, the Magic Ship and the garden are gone, and I am older, and I don’t have the resources I once had to create such a garden, but I believe that one day I will create a new kind of garden again. My green picket fence garden is now full of weeds, but once upon a time it looked like this…

There’s no reason it can’t look like that again. It’s not time yet, I’m not quite ready, but it can happen. I believe that now. I believe that everything happens in the right and perfect time, and I believe my lime green picket fence garden will live again.

I am starting small, finding my way back and into the kind of life I once dreamed of and knew. And no, it isn’t the same, but I feel something glorious is happening. Before the fire every single room in my house had different colored twinkly lights all around the ceiling. Here, in my studio, they were pink. A month before Christmas I was gifted the most magical, amazing thing. A big box filled (and I mean filled, it took me a month opening one gift per day to open it all!) with gifts! I couldn’t believe it. And in that box were two boxes of pink twinkly lights! And I am about to put them up. And I used to look out of the studio onto my magical deck lit up like a fairy wonderland. I’m going to find a way to get lights back up there too!

I can’t rebuild the ship but I can find a way to get fairy lights again! I am re-imagining my whole life. I haven’t even been able to light a candle in my house since the fire and I used to have candles everywhere. I now light a candle every day when I meditate and usually leave it burning while I write. Baby steps!

It is never too late to recover what you have lost. It won’t be the same, no, but you will find a whole new way that works for you now. I am so excited to finally be moving forward and rediscovering magic in my life. I don’t know how it will turn out but I know it will be perfect for me now. I am finding my way, and it feels glorious…

Once upon a time there were mermaids.
There will be mermaids again…

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda

Comments

  1. Julia Ferry says

    out of the fire the phoenix rises.. to new and better things..

    When i have my farm one of the first things I want to build is a play ground with a pirate ship on it. I though it could have pirate weekends and maps to buried treasure..

    • Thank you so much Julia honey and YES! Build your playground! Have your Pirate Ship! Life is too short NOT to! And of course, maps for buried treasure! 😀

  2. Oh of course there are meremaids, always. But sometimes they are hiding. If you are resonating you can hear them sing! I’m glad your magic is returning and very much looking forward to what you are going to tell us about that.
    The little mermaid from the Baltic Sea sends you love!

    • Ah darling Silke, yes! There must be mermaids. The mermaid that had been on the bow of the ship and the mermaid in the picture above are gone now but I have mermaids IN the house. I was left some magic after all. And it will be fun to move forward making magic and share with all of you here. I look forward to that!

      I hope you and Ben are having a good weekend. I’m sending you lots of love…

      Maitri 🙂

  3. That’s so lovely Maitri, to find your magic again and to remember your playfulness. I always thought of you as very playful with all your vibrant colors around you both outside and inside your house. And your art is very playful in its style too. And the other things you have spoken of in the past like your fiber arts and your knitting and all the collectibles you had before. All that sounds like a very playful, creative environment to me. But I understand that it is the feeling of interacting with all those things that you are beginning to recover again. Delightful!

    • Thank you so much Joan, it is truly a time of renewal, rediscovery, and a return to magic. After the fire I didn’t know what “playful” was. And I felt old and like everything was over. Now, getting close to 64 (In April) I feel younger than I have in years, and embracing life again and all it is bringing is truly a wonder. And of course some of the most playful, childlike, magical people are in their 80’s and 90’s and 100! WE’RE YOUNG! 😀 Let’s make all the magic we can, okay? Let’s all light up the world, any way we can. Let’s all ROCK this thing called Life! Hallelujah!

  4. What an inspiring post! It’s wonderful to hear you are rediscovering your magic. Fire- beautiful when controlled…. but just consumes and is fast! I’m glad no one was physically hurt in the fire. I’m glad you chose to rebuild- it seems there is magic in the land there, and as you heal you will bring the magic back.

    • Hello Darling Lorraine, so good to see you here, and thank you for your kind words about the post. 🙂 There were some terrible losses with the fire. I lost 4 beloved parrots I had hand-raised from babies and had for 20 years. They talked to me and sang to me and kissed me and loved to be on my shoulder. That was the most terrible thing and I will never get over losing them. But it is a new day, healing has been slow but is taking place, and they are flying free over the Rainbow Bridge now. One day I will see them again. And it’s never too late to bring the magic back. That’s what I’m discovering now, and it is a glorious discovery. Let the magic begin! 😀

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