Fairest of Them All

I have a vivid memory of playing with my sister in our "sky blue pink" bedroom with a bunk bed:  I, being the ever-bossy older sister, turned to her and said, "I am the princess.  You have to do what I say."   She, being the ever-clever younger sister, said, "I am the queen.  You have to do what I say." 

I was flabbergasted. 

I could not fathom anyone being more powerful than a princess.  How could that possibly happen?  She was right.  She secured her position as the queen and we proceeded in our attempts to climb though our full-length mirror, mimicking as much as possible Alice as she climbed through her famous looking glass. 

I was reminded of this memory this past Monday when I took L-Bear to a check-up.  When the nurse came in to weigh & measure my dark haired, bright green eyed, smiling baby, she smiled and stated, "She looks like Snow White!"  I loved this.  For me to have a classic storybook character look alike for a daughter is so perfect.  

Later, after the doctor came in to chat about introducing solids, the nurse was back.  This time L-Bear needed to get three shots. If you are a parent, you know this is a miserable experience. Each time L gets a shot, she looks up at me while I hold her and makes THAT sad face that says, "Why are you doing this to me!?" then cries.  It's awful.  Well, this time, the usual face was presented.  She looked up at me.  Whimpered a little.  I reminded her that I was proud of her for being brave.  Then, something surprising happened:  L-Bear smiled at the nurse. It was as if she was thinking, "I know this hurts, but I am brave and I understand."  

The nurse paused, then smiled at me and said, "Pretty and brave.  Little Snow White."  

I was so proud. 

Because of the Disney version of this fairy tale, I think we sometimes forget earlier versions.  Snow White's life was so hard.  Her mother died.  Her father's new wife hated her.  A hunter tried to kill her. But, after using her wits to convince the hunter to let her live, instead of feeling sorry for herself, she found a new life with people who cared about her.  She created a happy existence for herself - became one with the natural world around her.  

I know what you're thinking - true love's first kiss saved Snow White after she, naively, ate a poisoned apple given to her by a disguised evil queen.  Do you really want L-Bear to grow up as a damsel in distress, waiting for a Prince?

You are mistaken, my friend. 

In Grimm's version, based on oral tales of the centuries, there is a prince. And there is an apple.  And the sweet trusting Snow White was tricked.   True Love's first kiss didn't save Snow White, though.  The Prince and his fellow travelers came upon Snow White in her glass coffin, and seeing how beautiful she was, decided to bring her back to his home for a proper burial.  In doing so, the coffin was dropped, the apple was dislodged, and Snow White awoke, ever grateful.  

The Evil Queen, you ask?  She, still "green with envy", attended Snow White's wedding.  While there, "iron slippers had already been put upon the fire, and they were brought in with tongs, and set before her. Then she was forced to put on the red-hot shoes, and dance until she dropped down dead." 

Yup.  Good wins again.  Snow White's ability to believe in the goodwill of human-kind enabled her to thrive, even in the worst of situations.  Her ability to trust and to continue living with a heart full of love and hope, enabled her to push through her darkest days, and find true happiness.  

So, when I think back to these early days on L-Bear's life,  I will always remember her as my sweet, brave Snow White.  Smiling through hard times, knowing sometimes life is hard, but always remembering to keep love and hope at the forefront of her being.  

Dark Fay, Light Fay: Musings on Good and Evil

As an introduction to this post, I would like to share with you something terrible that happened to me just yesterday:  Someone broke into my home and stole things.  My television, my computers, my Kindle, a necklace that had lots of meaning to me.  Things that belonged to me.  I earned them, I had them locked up safely in my home.  Someone else decided I did not deserve them and took them.   Of course, there are millions of thoughts racing through my mind:  Why would someone do this?  What in the world did he/she/they do with my stuff?  Why doesn't he/she/the group bring my things back to me?  I'm sad and angry and frustrated because I know there is very little that can be done.

That said, I am also very fortunate.  Although these thoughtless people entered my home unwelcome and took things that belonged to me, and left the door wide open because they rushed out, they did think to put our dog gate up so the dogs couldn't get out.   The two most important creatures in my life are still here, snoozing away on their dog beds.  The thieves also did not destroy what they left behind:  Sure, things were a little messy, but it only took me an hour or so to clean it up.  I wasn't here to "surprise them" so I am safe and sound.  This could have been much worse.

You are probably wondering by now what this has to do with my 100 books.  In case you don't know me very well, I have friends who I make jokes with about what goes on in my mind - these jokes usually have to do with unicorns, vampires, Edgar Allan Poe...  My world is full of fantasy - a world of good versus evil.  That is, in part, why I decided to begin writing this blog in the first place.  I want to think about and consider all things good and evil.  I want to ponder how allegorical and metaphorical creatures reflect our real lives.

While driving back to Salem this past Saturday, after visiting with family in the Berkshires, I listened to a Poe audio book I love.  This excursion's topic of the hour:  Island of the Fay.   Poe's story tells a tale of a man viewing a tiny island.  This island, the man tells us, homes fairies and on this particular day the man witnesses the life and death of one such fairy.  He watches her change from light to dark, and finally to a shadow.   This tale considers the "grayness" of light and dark and the confusion that can arise when it is not clear what is good and what is evil:

*... She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened momently) and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the island, (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over an things and I beheld her magical figure no more. *

So, with this in mind, let us consider, for a moment, Metamorphosis by Kafka.   A young man - a "good" young man - finds himself, one day, transformed into an evil bug.  A giant, awful, smelly beetle.  At first, his thoughts are still there.  He thinks about his family and how awful it will be for them since his income will no longer be able to support them.  He worries about his sister and her studies.  Eventually, though, because his family can no longer understand him, he loses this part of himself.  He becomes, on the inside, too, an evil, disgusting beetle with no love or passion.   This is so true of many circumstances in life.   Imagine the abandoned dog who turns violent because he is hungry and lonely.  Or the awkward child on the playground who lashes out when he finally gets fed up with being made fun of.

Perhaps, also, we can think a bit about the fairy tale princesses: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella.  These young ladies, legend says, were murdered, put to sleep for centuries, and locked up as maids because of some one's jealousy over things they had.   Their beauty (I like to think of this as inner and skin deep beauty - imagine Snow White the dwarfs home singing to animals) was more than anyone else's in the land so someone else came along - in the Grimm versions, their own step-mothers - and tried to take that away from them.  Modern versions of the tales, with their happy endings, show, though, that this theft was impossible.  The princess' beauty won out every time.

Finally, let's ponder a bit about the Wizard of Oz.  I'm sticking with the movie version here, since that is the most familiar to many of you.  When I was a very little girl, my Grampa Knights had a laser disk player.   For those not familiar, this was pre-VHS;  it was sort of like CD meets vinyl.  Whenever we visited, he would play the Wizard of Oz for us.  Eventually he made a copy of it on VHS for us (boo SOPA!).  I will never forget watching this taped version and know it by heart: In the nature of CDs, at the scene where the Scarecrow joins Dorothy's journey the VHS even "skipped" a little.  So instead of saying "To Oz!", it said "To... we're off to see the Wizard!"  The whole movie, as you know, is about a little girl who wants more out of her quiet, black and white life.  She wants to fly over a rainbow and visit distant lands.  She wants to meet interesting people and enjoy snacks of hotdogs with a traveling 'professor.'  Along the way she finds magic shoes.  Red. Shiny. Sparkly.  And someone else wants them.  That someone else, the evil witch, does everything in her power to take them back.  At the end of the journey, though, Dorothy learns she does not even need the magic powers of the shoes.  All she needs is her family.   Those fancy expensive shoes, the traveling... it is meaningless without her family and friends.    Good wins again.

So, although this awful, terrible, no good thing happened to us it certainly is not the worst most awful terrible no good thing that could have happened.  These people who stole my things because they could not earn them on their own - whether out of inability, or laziness, or jerkiness - were not able to steal the things most important to me.   I won't let them take that away.  So, while I sit here typing away at my new laptop, drinking delicious coffee with a Greyhound at my feet, I can't stop but think about my amazing family and friends and all of the love in which I am surrounded.

Just for Fun: Snow White, a Modern Fairy Tale

This particular blog is not about a book I have recently read, per se, but instead about an article I read online today. Some stories, fairy tales in particular, are such important parts of our lives, and this particular article got me thinkin'...


NPR recently shared some opinions about why "Snow White" is so popular right now. I remember watching the Disney version as a little girl and - though I loved it - not really understanding why the evil queen hated that sweet little girl. Later, when I read the Grimm version, the final line has always stayed with me: "Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead..." Eek! Payback! There is the message that was missing from the Disney version! (A live-action version of this tale scared me a bit in the late 80s... ) The message of this story when written down so many years ago, was that vanity will only harm us in the end. Those who are beautiful and who do not hate those more beautiful will thrive in society (ahem... become a queen?).... and those who are vain and evil will not.


As of late, I love watching the ABC show "Once Upon a Time" - a modern take on all of Grimm's fairy tales (and some other stories - "Alice" for one) all mushed together. In this show, Snow White's evil doing is actually explained. As a little girl she inadvertently helps the Evil Queen's mother murder the Evil Queen's love. The Evil Queen's mother tricks the young girl into telling her lover's name.


After reading NPR's take on this, I keep wondering, have we finally settled on a reason for Snow to be so hated by her step-mother? Could it finally be that we've decided that a hatred for someone because she is beautiful is not sufficient, and perhaps - albeit she is evil - the Evil Queen might need to have a reason to want to tear out a little girl's heart, her stepdaughter's heart? In our world of constant attention - I am thinking of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube... - perhaps we are so constantly reminded that there is someone better looking, better talented, better smart, better, better, better... that the type of vanity first mentioned in the written versions of this tale no longer have so much meaning. I am not sure the author of this article, Neda Ulaby, or the producers of Mirror Mirror, the new movie referred to within, quite understand our modern need for an Evil Queen with more depth. I will not likely see this version, and will instead wait for "Snow White and the Huntsman" due out later this year. In this rendition, the Huntsman trains Snow to become a great warrior. Look out Evil Queen!


You can read the NPR article here:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/03/31/149691236/snow-white-rising-why-this-princess-and-why-this-moment