Smile a Wee Smile

It is fairy time/summer time again. Go "poof" and blow dandelion or cottonwood fluff in the air. Walk on cool stepping stones surrounded by moss. Listen to a small creek burble over some stones. Look for spider webs glistening with dew. Sip from honeysuckle flowers. Put an acorn cap on your thumb and draw a face. Get drowsy by the pool, and look at blue dragonflies out of the corner of your eye. Put on your leotard, and dance barefoot in the living room to the 33 1/3 rpm mono recording of "The Nutcracker Suite" or Vivaldi's "Four Seasons". Climb the maple, or find a cool "cave" under the branches of the pine tree with a soft floor of needles. Use the biggest umbrella or parasol you can find to act out "The Elf and the Dormouse", by Oliver Herford:

Under a toadstool crept a wee elf
Out of the rain to shelter himself.

Under the toadstool sound asleep
Sat a big dormouse all in a heap.

Trembled the wee elf, frightened, and yet
Fearing to fly away lest he get wet.

To the next shelter--maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile.

Tugged till the toadstool toppled in two.
Holding it over him, gaily he flew.

Soon he was safe home, dry as could be.
Soon woke the dormouse-- "Good gracious me!"

"Where is my toadstool?" loud he lamented.
--And that's how umbrellas first were invented.



Be watchful for fairy rings of toadstools in the forest or meadow or your backyard. You are mortal. If you step into a fairy ring, the fairies can capture you and take you to fairyland. Don't eat their fairyland food, or you can never go back. (I'm sure it is made with sparkling Splenda!)

*Wonderful pixy sculpture in Highland Park, Texas, across the street from the Town Hall.