faery children
Yesternight at the Beltane festival I danced the spring in as Persephone around the bonfire, but during the day I unpacked my tool kit full of latex paints and brushes and sparklies and glitter and spread out a blanket on the grass and painted kid's faces all afternoon. And I realized afterward that it was the first time I remember really interacting with children, ever. Face-painting is so intimate, sitting cross legged on the blanket, I had to touch them, look into their eyes, talk to them, I've never been so close to small children before. And they struck me. So innocent. Such soft skin, such open eyes, so willing to talk about what they really think about everything. Each one so different, some sitting solemn and completely still, some jerking this way and that looking in all directions, some very forthright and talkative, some very very shy. But they all loved having their faces painted, and they all thought I was just amazing, with my red-streaked hair and sparkly costume. I have never really liked kids much, I've always seen them as kind of alien and even a little intimidating, always I just didn't know what to say to them. But yesterday I painted twenty kids' faces, and finally got it, what was so holy and wonderful about kids. The little four year old boy, round cheeked and completely still, who looked wide-eyed and silent the whole time I painted him, and I turned him into a little faery creature, and he walked away across the field of sun-- oh I understood then, I didn't understand it before. Could we all have once started like that? Such a sun-child, such a child of God? I felt a twinge, I fell in love, a cry stuck in my throat. Dangerous. I became aware that I had grown up.