I slow my pace as I round a curve into a densely shaded section of the nature trail. Even though it’s a suburban walking path only a block from my house, I always steel myself at this particular juncture, because it feels like the forest primeval is closing in. Mature maples and oaks muffle the grinding gears of UPS trucks. The canopy dims greens to shades of gray. I square my shoulders and advance into the shadows.

A stab of sunlight bounces off shiny colors at the base of an oak tree. Glass rocks from Michael’s are sprinkled on the ground, like spilled Skittles. I lean closer. Nestled in the crook of the trunk is a surprise. Someone has constructed a fairy land tableau. Two miniature houses. (Victorian, I’d say.) Gold foil-wrapped coins form a walkway. A fairy with dragonfly wings sits regally on a mushroom (a repurposed thread spool).

I cringe, but wanting to be a better person, reach for a positive attitude.

The scene is creative. It’s a surprise of happy colors here in the shade. And I have to admire the engineering required to construct a six-inch Victorian.

I feel lighter, having shed the weight of negativity.

I continue my stroll and reverse course for home. Directly across from fairyland number one, facing the direction I’m now headed, lies another miniature scene. Fairyland number two is a condo-plex on the ground at the base of the tree. A couple of clotheslines tacked waist-high on the trunk, with miniature shirts and dresses hanging there. Ladders running from the condos up to the laundry. Tiny path lights.

The fairies have gone too far.

The nerve of these pixies. They think the aesthetic of oak trees needs improvement. They decide these trees now belong to them, to use as they please. They sail in here all Christopher Columbus and stake a claim on somebody else’s land.

Indigenous civilizations already reside in the underbrush: Ants, worms, centipedes, spiders, beetles, mice, and other creepy-crawlies that I’m normally opposed to. After a night of foraging, they discover the plastic pixie on their front stoop, its dragonfly wings becalmed.

Centipede: Hey. What the hell is that? You think it’s dead?

Mouse: Nah. If it were dead, it would smell better.

Pixieland is a pile of glue, plastic, and dyes, as useful in the natural landscape as styrofoam cups. The cute Victorian houses will be reduced to rubble by marauding raccoons. The path lights will succumb to the ravages of ill-mannered cockapoos. The poisons in the adorable clotheslines will end up in the tiny bellies of spiders that were minding their own business. Will the fairies come back to clean up the mess their colony leaves behind?

I’m not used to sticking up for nature. Nature and I are not friends. But fairies should hang their laundry in their own backyard.

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

*****

“There was a full moon outside my window, icy white in a blue sky, and the Cubs were playing Cincinnati.”
———Marilynn Robinson
——--Gilead
I’m ten years old, lying in the bow of Dad’s yellow cabin cruiser. We’ve been fishing, just the two of us. He sits on the deck smoking his pipe. Vin Scully is calling a Dodgers game on the radio. Mosquitoes buzz. Lightning bugs flicker. The river rocks me to sleep.

I fumbled for the bedside clock; the numbers floated into place. 6:00 am. Too early to call my sister Michelle, who lived in California, where her clock was reading 4:00 AM.


A dream woke me up. Michelle and I sat at a table in front of a sidewalk cafe. Between us, another Michelle—a misty replica of the original. We were leaning in, old friends whispering secrets.


Michelle would know what the dream meant. She was a minister and spiritual counselor.


Beyond my curiosity, I was also worried. I had phoned her the week before, but ended up with her voice mail. I’d left a message, then another, to no avail. I worried the ghostly figure meant she was ill.  Or worse.


I stumbled down to the kitchen to grab a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk.


My favorite photo was taped to the fridge. Michelle and me, nine and five, dressed up for Easter Sunday, posed side by side on our grandmother’s porch. A black and white picture, but I remembered the day in full color. Michelle wore a hot pink circle skirt, a white stripe at the hem, pale pink bolero. I wore a navy satin dress with fuzzy white polka dots, a white bonnet perched on the back of my head, its navy ribbon tied under my chin. We carried identical purses, mine swinging as I held it a arm’s length. Michele’s dangling from hands clasped in front of her, a lady.


We cock our heads toward each other, but there’s a space between us wide enough to squeeze in a third girl. I’m a kid, mugging for our grandmother, who took the picture. My legs point in one direction, my torso in another. Michelle is heir to the throne. Like someone who’s practiced for eons. She knew how to hold a purse, how to be still, where to direct her attention. I smile with a squint, She smiles wih an aura.
Even in a faded photo, her presence comforted.


At 7:00 AM, impatience got the better of me. Michelle answered on the first ring. I was so startled, I forgot I was calling to make sure she wasn’t dead.


Of course there had been a logical reason she hadn’t called me back—she’d spent the holidays out of town with her daughter and grandbabies. I began to doubt the dream had any meaning at all. I was foolish for taking it seriously.


I cleared my throat. “Uhh … Michelle … I had the weirdest dream about you. Maybe you know what it means.”


I waited to see if she would laugh. She didn’t. “So … well … there were two of you, a regular you and this ghostly you, and it seemed, uh, normal, and we were all just talking, and, well, it didn’t make sense.”


“It does make sense. There are two me’s.”


I was startled by the speed of her response, like answering the phone on the first ring.


She said, “You know I help people contact loved ones who’ve crossed over. And that’s a different Michelle than the one who’s here the rest of the time.”


Because she rarely brought it up and never shared any details, I’d paid little attention to this aspect of her life. I interacted with the Michelle who worked, shopped, and spent the holidays with great-grandbabies.


She said, “Nobody likes to talk about it, though. I feel kind of lonely. Every once in a while someone at work will ask me to contact a loved one, but our family pretty much ignores it. Maybe it scares them.”


I angled the phone closer to my ear.


“In a way,” she said, “I feel validated by your dream.”


I remember … when I was in high school and college and way too self-referential to notice deeply … I recall a general negative tone around our house, regarding Michelle’s spiritual leanings. Our parents regarded her mentor, Mama Pat, with suspicion. They hinted at sinister motives, like Mama Pat was a voodoo priestess leading Michelle down a path of debauchery. In truth, it was a path of awakening. Michelle was learning to listen to her guides. Identifying the kundalini energy that raced through her body. Recognizing miracles. Speaking to the Divine through music.


Michelle and I talked for an hour, me in my kitchen and she curled up in her bed. I was a visitor in her secret world, spellbound. I opened up to the Michele I’d made invisible, privileged to be the one who broke her loneliness.


I became self-conscious about my needless worry and mindful of the two-hour time difference. “Sorry I got you up so early.”


“Actually, you didn’t. I woke up at four and couldn’t get back to sleep.”


The same time I woke up from the dream.