If you’ve read here before you may know that I often leave handmade, tiny ferris wheels or miniature houses on sidewalks or in trees for kids to find, like a lazy Boo Radley. Yesterday Hailey and I took this to a new level when we decided to make a small fairy room in the park nearby. The park is filled with trees and it always seems a bit magical so finding fairies there wouldn’t be out of the question:
I pulled out a chair from my dollhouse and a tiny book that I’d made and we came up with this:
And it went well aside from one guy who came up on us and was like, “ARE YOU TOUCHING BIRDS?” which is a weird thing to say because WHY WOULD WE TOUCH BIRDS? WHAT SORT OF WILD BIRDS LET YOU TOUCH THEM? And also WHY ARE WE YELLING? So we told him that, no, we were not touching birds (because that would be weird and this isn’t a disney cartoon). We were creating a reading nook for tired fairies who needed to chill. And he seemed confused (and maybe disappointed?) and left.
The tree is on the backside of a hiking trail and not very easy to spot but I assumed it would be gone (or smashed to the ground by angry squirrels) by today but this morning we hiked into the woods and instead we found that others had added to it.
And it reminded me of the magic of small things, and of hope and silliness, and made me feel a bit brighter so I thought I’d share it with you.
PS. Don’t touch birds. I don’t even know why I’m having to clarify this but if you can touch a bird that’s a pretty good indicator that the bird is very sick and doesn’t want you poking at it. Except once my uncle found a talking bird that followed him around the backyard while he was mowing and turns out it was someone’s pet parrot who needed help. So I guess it’s okay to touch birds if they can specifically ask you for it. Or if the bird is being a real asshole is attacking your dog. Then you can hit it with a shovel. That’s why I carry a shovel when I walk Dorothy Barker because suddenly there are birds of prey all over my neighborhood and my dog isn’t your snack, birds. I mean, I super love birds but I will take a motherfucker down if they fuck with my puppy. That’s just how I roll, birds.
PPS. Sorry. Got off on a tangent there. Stop thinking about birds eating dogs. Go back to the happy, whimsical fairy thoughts. Much better. Sorry. Those birds are assholes.
PPS. A few people were asking how to make the tiny books so I made a tiny tutorial here.