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holiday cheer of the reluctant variety

I despise the holidays, consumerism and plastered-on merriment wrapped in festive ribbons and shoved down my throat before I’ve even taken my Hallowe’en costume off.

Every day a sale and fighting to find the best deals and the biggest tree and Santa Claus on soda cans, though I suppose that one is proper historical tradition by now and not just seasonal marketing.

Still, once it gets down to the dark days of December, there’s that something in the chill air. Something quiet during the longest nights of the year.

With twinkling lights on strings.

And eggnog lattes.

Hot chocolate and candy canes and that horribly intoxicating evergreen tree scent that’s practically mind-altering and the damned Vince Guaraldi Trio and their perfect Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack.

And a well-timed snowfall.

It makes it difficult to Bah Humbug.

Dammit.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

beautiful uncertainties

“Why do you do that?” he asks me, while I’m rinsing off my brushes.

“Why do I do what?”

“Why do you write things you don’t believe on the tables?”

“I believe some of them,” I say after a moment, watching the blue and red paint-tinged water circle the drain in almost-purple swirls.

“You don’t believe that one,” he says, balancing a tray full of empty teacups on one hand so he can point at the still-damp letters.

find the beauty and adventure in uncertainty and you will be free

“I’d like to.” I can’t look him in the eye so I focus on my paintbrushes instead before adding “Maybe someone will read it and think whoever wrote it must have believed it and that will help them believe it, too.”

“I wish you’d just believe it yourself,” he says.

When I look up he’s already taken his teacups and walked away.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

the way home

I am tiring of paths that lead to walls.

I know each wall will have a door, but they’re difficult to find and even more difficult to open, and it takes up so much time.

They’re roadblocks. Pathblocks, since there are no proper roads.

Sometimes it feels like I’m looking for a place that doesn’t exist.

Or if it does, it doesn’t want to be found.

At least, not yet.

I wonder how long I should keep going.

I wonder if I have a choice.

I wonder if I’ll recognize it when I get there.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

to help you see the whole truth

I didn’t really question my mental state until giant owls started talking to me.

Well, a giant owl.

One is probably enough for sanity-doubting.

Though I wasn’t even all that surprised when he showed up.

I thought “oh, it’s come to this” and that was that.

And really, it’s nice to have the company.

I keep wondering what it means, why he’s here. If I’ve finally lost it or it’s some sort of divine sign or a combination of the two.

He sits on my couch and drinks all my beer and tells me things I already know.

Which is its own kind of wisdom, I suppose.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

up to interpretation

She doesn’t call them tests, but that’s what they are. She tests me all the time, pulling single cards out at unexpected moments and holding them out to me, impatiently waiting for my interpretations, making me think on my feet without giving me time to consult dictionaries full of meanings.

It seems like one card at a time should be easier than complex layouts, but it’s hard for me to be concise. To pull out words and distill a symbolic image into coherent sentences. I was never all that good at coherent sentences.

Today the card that appears suddenly in front of me is The Lovers, and my heart feels heavy before my head can come up with a proper response.

It’s not about love, I say when I manage to untie my tongue. It’s about choices.

Good, she says as she puts the card back in the deck, a soft, sad smile tugging at her lips. Though if it is about love, there are no choices.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

new to the neighborhood

My parents made a big fuss about moving like I would find it traumatic to have to put all my stuff in cardboard boxes but it really wasn’t that bad. My room is bigger now and the window has a seat in it. And the new neighborhood is pretty much the same as the old one was except here the squirrels can talk.

They don’t stay in trees, they come up to the porch and sit on the steps. They’re terrible gossips, I knew the peculiar habits and naughty secrets of all the neighbors before they even started coming over with welcome-to-the-neighborhood pastries and casseroles.

The squirrels are pushy, too. They nag me about keeping my shoelaces double-knotted and they pull them loose if I forget. One of them tried to take my donut this morning and when I wouldn’t let him have it he swore at me and muttered something about reporting me to the magistrate and stormed off in a huff. I watched his fluffy tail disappear through the leaves while I ate my donut, which was chocolate-frosted, and wondered if I would have shared if he had just asked politely.

I told my mother about it and when I got to the bit about the magistrate she sighed and said we’d probably have to move again.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

coffee & pie

He went in because of the neon sign in the window advertising both coffee and pie but careful study of the printed menu revealed neither. There were lattes and macchiatos and cappuccinos but nothing listed as simple coffee. Tarte tatins and cobblers and even flan but no pie. His hopes lifted when he noticed an additional list written in chalk on the wall but it contained only a selection of cakes ranging from cup to cheese, food for devils and angels but still, no pie.

He shifted anxiously on the faux-leather bench as he waited for the waitress to approach and when she did he was relieved to see she carried a silver pot in her hand.

“Tea?” she asked, holding out the pot and he shook his head slowly, raising a hand to indicate the backwards neon letters in the window.

“Oh, we haven’t served coffee or pie in ages,” she said. “I don’t know why no one bothered to change the sign.”

He nodded once, sadly, and then started to cry. The waitress stood by silently for a few moments before moving to another table to refill someone’s tea.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

still waiting for prince charming

I found a princess in the woods.

I was pretty sure she was dead, but she’s asleep. She looks dead, with wrong-colored clammy-slimy skin and a decaying gown, but she has a pulse. It’s faint, but it’s definitely a pulse.

I know the proper thing to do in such situations is to wake her with a kiss and I don’t want to, her lips are covered in dirt and moss and she looks like she’s been out here for a good long time. There are bugs in her shoes. She’s clearly been rained on. Her hands were probably folded at some point but one arm has fallen to the side and the fingers are mostly buried in the mud.

I shook her and yelled but that didn’t work, not that I expected it to. I could try to drag her out of the woods, but she’s heavy.

I should probably just call the police.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

poor unlucky lucy

When Lucy died—at that precise moment—everything changed.

She used to say she was just a k away from lucky, that was always the joke though all things considered it wasn’t particularly funny. No one ever wanted to point out that what she really meant she was unlucky.

I had a three AM conversation at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey with someone who told me in a whisper her theory that Lucy’s death unleashed all that unluck out on the rest of us again. It sounded reasonable at the time but questionable in the hungover morning light.

Other people say she’s a classic vengeful spirit, bitter and annoyed by her passing to the point of harassing the living about it out of spite.

It probably doesn’t matter what the cause is, though, since there doesn’t appear to be a solution.

We leave her notes and pearls and almond cakes, but nothing works.

There’s talk about needing larger sacrifices. It must be done, they say, but so far no one has volunteered.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

written in the leaves

Leaf reading is a skill not easily learned, as there is such a limited time to practice it each year. It is a temporary thing. Glimpses of image and pattern carefully translated into meaning.

Traditionally it is taught, passed down from reader to student through years of autumns spent in intense instruction, calling attention to the variety of the leaf, the level of decay, the size and shape of each void and the way their meanings impact each other. All layered over to form their messages, their last cries to the world before the wind takes them away with a sound like mice scampering across the pavement.

But now the students, when there are any students, do not have the patience for it, becoming frustrated with the wind rather than working with it, easily distracted by less arcane methods of communication.

Their instructors try each year with slowly diminishing effort, but the teaching time is fleeting. The patterns stay for only moments before they are lost, messages in brief whispers that require straining and concentration to hear.

Every year there are fewer teachers, and even fewer students barely receiving passing grades.

Another language almost lost.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.