There are fairies at the bottom of my garden. I am sure of it.
The idea of a fantasy planted in my head by my mother when I was little, they are my greatest inspiration, something I turn to when everything feels so utterly bleak. I feel stuck in a rut and I turn to the fairies, seeking their guidance through the wind whistling through the trees and the grass between my toes and the wildflowers glittering like jewels under the sun. Maybe we’re not talking about fairies, maybe you don’t believe me. But if you look hard enough amongst the horrors, there is room for belief, for beauty.
I love pulling my blinds up in the morning and being greeted with however the world is choosing to be today. Sunshine on the patch of garden grass, a blue sky, a grey misty one, a streak of brilliant pinks as the sun is still waking up. Before I check my phone and see what atrocities have been committed overnight, I get to see this. I get to greet the Earth as it wakes up with everyone else, chat to it with my morning cup and journal in my hands. The fairies glitter in the morning dew of my mother’s flowerbeds.
Sometimes I walk along the high street of the town I have always lived in, and it is so easy to feel like a caged animal that doesn’t even realise it’s not trapped anymore. It is so easy to turn to negativity in a place like this, where I have nothing but job rejections and impossibly expensive houses. ‘You’re lucky you have a job and a roof over your head!’, but it’s a job I feel myself decaying within. The street is a husk; buildings dilapidated, housing dying businesses or obvious fronts. No soul, everyone on their phones, the road congested with buses and cars and delivery bikes like a clogged artery. The air is smoggy, polluted, no beauty to be seen. I think to myself that I will always be stuck here, morphing into this mess, if I don’t get out soon. But how do I get out? How?
But I keep walking, because I have things to do other than wallowing, and I look longer than two seconds past the surface level grime. Some of these cafes, these businesses have been here since I was little, probably longer. They are mini hives for people to flit to in the in-between moments of their days, a quiet moment of solitude over a £5 coffee and panini, or a long awaited catch up with an old friend that feels like family. Just because something is ‘ugly’ through the lens of an online society that demands perfection, does not mean that there is no beauty here. My life here has beauty, amongst the shitty career bit, there’s loved ones, a safe home, and a beach just a touch away. The fairies spin an image of home, of community, of togetherness, and that can be enough.
It has been a long, terrible shift at work, for everyone involved. A long, terrible shift of spilt coffee, lunch rushes, chefs going to great lengths to get a rise out of you, rude customers even though you’re just trying to help them. It has been constant and unforgiving and all the thoughts of quitting and applying for jobs you don’t even want and of not talking to anyone for the rest of the day are flying through your mind. But in a brief, quiet lapse, when the tide of people ebbs out just for a few minutes, four of you are huddled round the corner of the bar, all with half cold coffees and tired eyes and a little derision. All it takes is for one oddly worded sentence to send you all giggling like school kids, and you think that amongst all this mess and stained aprons and aching feet and scraps of dignity, at least you have this. Beauty, the fairies whisper, in the unending everyday-ness of it.
I am watching the news. There is a very angry, self important man on the screen. He’s going on about ‘those illegal immigrants coming over on the boats’, like those aren’t people, aren’t mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and siblings just looking for somewhere safe to exist. He’s making an idiot of himself, like a court jester bending over backward for the attention of just one royal. The presenter who has the misfortune of having this man on her show is watching him with a barely concealed smile of scorn. She’s not listening to a single word coming out of his mouth. Beauty, there.
There is a war, several actually, happening across various countries in the world, none of which are happening anywhere near me. A blessing, but the threat is always there, the thought of so many lives being disrupted all for a handful of power, money, always money. Little girls whose futures are snatched away before they get a chance to dream. They flit through my thoughts as I drive around in a town that is so devoid of such hideous conflict, full of people who will likely never experience such things, and therefore do not care, because they do not need to worry about it. But I spot a conflict relief pop up in my local shopping centre, charity bins overflowing with donations, clothes, hygiene products. Hopefully all will reach the right places. Beauty in community, in helping people we will never get a chance to meet.
I sit in my garden and think about the fairies, about missed opportunities, future plans and dreams, billions of lives happening close and far away. The world feels like its ending, but the sun dances across the waves on the beach like glitter. And there is hot food on the table, and I’m surrounded by people I love. The world feels like it’s ending, but there is still beauty. Always.
