A Letter From The Faeries.

Recently, during a job interview, I was asked to describe my favourite memory. At first I was overwhelmed and directionless, I didn't know which corner of my brain to go digging through or how to choose at all. But then I thought that logically, I should start at the beginning, wipe the cobwebs off the box labelled "Earliest Memories" in my mind - which was stored neatly in the front left by the way - and I found very quickly that one of my earliest memories, is possibly also my most happy. So that got me thinking. Dangerous, I know, lol.

During my studies, I took a philosophy course on Phenomenology and Existentialism. Yikes. These two hard to pronounce words and harder to grasp concepts really gave my brain a run for its money! That being said, it ended up being my most valuable course and I did end up learning some extremely interesting things about human nature and our complex system of consciousness. If you have heard the term "existential" before, it was probably in the context of someone screaming something like, "I don't KNOW what any of this MEANS Phil, and I'm having an existential hecking crisis here!!!". Basically, a crisis of this kind and the study of existentialism is brought about by the way we are programmed to ask why, how and what? Why do bad things happen to good people? How do we know if we even exist outside of our own minds? What the heck does this all MEAN? It is the study of our existence and our experienced reality. Once again - yikes.

Anyway, when it comes to the computation of our lives, us poor and confused humans are left with little choice but to compartmentalize the meaning of everything into understandable and manageable categories - in this case, such as the past, the present and the future.

The future, for most, is terrifying - the classic fear of the unknown rears its ugly head. The present is chaotic - we're either running from the past or towards our futures at high speed and most people, like me, tend to forget to stop and smell the roses. The past can be a source of dread too - haunting even - but I think it is safe to say that every person has at least ONE happy memory to fall back on. The beauty of a good memory, of those little glitches in time that can take you away from your reality, back to a perfect and untouchable moment no matter how seemingly insignificant - is that because it has already happened, and you already know the outcome of it all, you can experience that perfection and happiness over and over again, with no risk of ruining it! Because let's face it, we humans tend to ruin things - just another consequence of our free will y'all.

That being said, our happiest memories will always be just that - happy! So, when it comes to my favourite memory, a moment in time that lives in my head rent free, I am comforted by the fact that I have nothing to lose and everything to gain from the joy it brings me.

That memory is set against a backdrop of African sunsets, rolling tobacco fields and the smell of the Zimbabwean breeze. If there could have been a theme song for that time in my life, it would have been the sound of my cousins laughter accompanied by a chorus of clucks and moos. And if it could have had a flavour profile it would have tasted like macadamia nuts, freshly baked bread and sugarcane. I was six years old and I was at home - on the farm I had grown up on - surrounded by family. It had been a hot, busy day of exploring, rock-clambering and playing PowerRangers and make-believe with the cousins.

But I wasn't tired. In fact, the orange glow silhouetting the cottage at the bottom of my grandmother's garden and the chatter of the adults who were sitting on the veranda, filled me with a charged excitement! Or, it could have been the Lemon Twist fizzy drink that I had been given earlier as a reward for being the first to spot a chameleon in the bushes.

There was music flowing from the speakers, twisting and twirling through the grape vines on the trellis and it made me want to twist and twirl too. In the twilight I danced on the grass barefoot and with my princess dress blooming and flourishing around me. My family was watching - adoring parents flanked by amused aunts, uncles, older cousins and a proud pair of grandparents, all with smiles on their faces and ice clinking in their glasses. My little cousins joined in - which caused hysterical fits of giggles from the adults - their laughs bounced off one another and echoed down into the crop fields. As the sun set, and I danced, I realized for the first time what it meant to feel safe and loved.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw tiny little lights appear, blinking and shimmering in the darkness around the shadow of the overgrown garden cottage. And I knew that they weren't fireflies or beetles - they were faeries. And so, after staring, mesmerized for a minute, I raced inside - I knew what I had to do, I had been preparing for this my whole life. With my mom's help I wrote them a letter. By the time we placed the folded square of paper in the flowerbed below the cottage, they were gone. So, the waiting began. That night, after falling asleep on my dad's lap, listening to the murmurs and hummings that flew off the veranda into the darkness like sparks, I dreamed of faeries and dancing. The next morning, woken by uncontrollable excitement, I jumped up - jostling my sleeping cousins and not caring - and bolted out into the garden.

The grass was cold and ticklish against my bare feet and the sun's rays had only just started resting on the layer of condensation that covered everything. The light bounded and refracted off the multicolored glasses and bottles left on the veranda after the night's festivities and they glittered like jewels. I walked over to the flower bed and felt around under the white, globular petals until I found my note - half sodden with dew. "Please, have replied, please, please, please..." I slowly unfolded the letter. Underneath my clumsy childlike handwriting was a scrawl of beautiful cursive script. The letter read:

ME - Dear Rainbow faeries, please will you reply to me, I really want to be friends. I have always wanted to be a faerie. Love Georgia.

THE FAERIES - Dear Georgia, of course we can be friends and we will always reply to your letters when we can. You are such a special little girl and your family loves you. Please try to remember to eat your broccoli - it's our favourite! P.S You don't need to be a faerie. You are magical just the way you are. Love, the Rainbow faeries.

And let me tell you, in that moment, I did feel magical. And I still do, whenever I look back on that day and relive that memory. Nowadays it isn't the faith and faerie dust that brings me comfort and happiness - it's the understanding of what that magical night signifies. My family members continued to respond to my faerie letters - giving me their advice, their friendship and an inexplicable sense of hope and magic - for many years to come.

That magical feeling didn't fade with the realization that faeries aren't likely real, or that it was my parents and family members behind it all. In fact, with that realization came an even greater sense of clarity, comfort and an untouchable magic, that is contained, now and forever, within that happy memory. So, if you're feeling blue today, can't shake the terrors of the past right now, or are worrying about tomorrow, take a breath and then take a moment - choose a memory - and cherish it. Past happiness doesn't have an expiry date.

By Georgia Rae