Land Of Make Believe

  There has been a resurgence in the interest in "Faerie Gardens".  If you wander around any department store, you can find any number of miniature items to decorate a small garden as such.  Tiny doors, benches, lights and even figurines all line the shelves.  These fanciful little items are all enticing to those of us who have wild imaginations.  Even as adults, some of us live in our own little fantasy lands of make believe.  While I admit to making Faerie Gardens as a child and then again when my daughter was a tot, I have not had the inclination to create one recently.  Now that I have a granddaughter, the thought has started rattling around in the brain.  No, not the "store-bought" sort of garden with plastic doodads but rather a magical little place decorated with mosses, ferns, pretty stones and such.  A regular Bayou Faerie Garden!

  Years ago when I was just a tot, Aunt Helen first introduced me to the idea.  She used no fancy-schmancy trinkets purchased at a shop.  Her gardens were "originals"!  Her own kids were older and had no interest in such childish pursuits but at 4 years old, I was a willing, if not eager, participant. Aunt Helen and I searched for the perfect spot, then set out to find our decorations.  Sometimes this endeavor took days to complete!  Pretty pink stones to be used as stools, mosses to carpet the garden, bright leaves to provide shade from the scorching sunshine and a large shell to be installed as a pool.  While mosses lined most of the floor, one area was always scraped clean to create a ballroom dance floor!  Our faeries loved to cut a rug and needed a nice sized dance floor!  It was all great fun and kept the resident toddler rather busy and out of every one's hair for days!  Then, when the garden was complete, I was allowed to use it as my play area.  Usually, however, I did more daydreaming than play.

  Sometimes even yet when I find a mossy log, the memory of my special bond with Aunt Helen floods the brain.  It is at that time that I wish to create another Faerie Garden like we did  back in the day.  No gaudy trinkets would ever cast a shadow on our gardens and none ever will.  Maybe Bayou Faeries are just a classier bunch of magical beings and do not need all of the gobbledygook of today's world.  If perchance I have a bit of quiet time with the grandprincess,  I will see if she would like to create a garden with her MawMaw.  Probably not as this cannot compare to all of the bells and whistles of today's toys.  To my way of thinking, that is sad.  Kids need imaginative play without any outside interference.  I might start searching for the perfect mossy log even if it is just for my own imagination to slip back into time to be with Aunt Helen for a short while.