I believe in fairies.
I feel odd saying that sometimes, partly because I am 21 years old, but mostly because people my age give me funny looks when I tell them.
Over the years I’ve learned to stop caring about what others think. I’ve even found others like me – fellow fairy folk who embrace the fantasy and magic in our world.
This past Saturday, I went to see a play, The King of the Faeries at Fern Dell in Griffith Park. The performance was put together by A Faery Hunt, a non-profit group that works with hospitals and children’s advocacy groups in the Los Angeles community.
As soon as I stepped into the park, a smile came to my face. I did not think about how I was the only adult in a fairy costume who wasn’t part of the performance, nor did I notice the parents giving me odd looks for sitting with their five-year-olds who also came to watch the play. I was smiling because it was nice to be in a place where I could don my handmade rainbow fairy wings and skirt and temporarily escape reality.
The play was an interactive quest where the audience followed the performers through the park while singing and dancing to invite more fairy performers to come out. The experience took me back to my childhood where I first discovered the wonderful world of fairies after watching the movie Thumbelina (Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, 1994).
I watched that movie so many times I knew every line of dialogue and sang along to every song. My playtime always involved fairies. To this day, fairies are still a big part of my life and I owe it all to that movie.
The movie is about a blonde-haired blue-eyed girl named Thumbelina, who is no bigger than the size of a thumb. A lonely woman who did not have children went to see a witch, and the witch gave her a magic seed. The seed grew into a flower, and this is how Thumbelina came to be. While Thumbelina is cared for, she feels alone because of her size.
As a child, I often felt lonely and friendless. I’ve read that child abuse victims often use fantasy as a coping mechanism, and perhaps this had something to do with my immersion into Fairyland. I wanted to be in a world where I was invincible and nothing could hurt me. What better world than one where there were no bounds to what I could do? I could create a world where I didn’t have to be fearful or alone. I would make-believe fairy friends that I played with and talked to, and even though no one else could see them, they were real to me. The artwork and music in the film sparked my imagination to create my own fairy world.
In the first part of the film, fairies are flying through a meadow at night and leaving a trail of golden fairy dust. It is autumn and they are changing the color of the leaves with their wands. The audio is composed of orchestral music with faint laughter and sounds of the fairies swooshing through the meadow. The dark leaves turn to a shimmering golden color and the music rises as the royal fairy court comes on screen, and you can hear bells ringing.
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This left a lasting impression on me and gave a new meaning to my own surroundings. I associated the changes of the seasons with fairies, and whenever I played outside I could see them dancing on flowers and perched on trees. I wanted my own magical world so I started willing it to become real.
Thumbelina also yearns for her own place in the world. Despite her small stature, she has an amazing voice and her wish for a friend comes true when the Fairy Prince Cornelius (whom I always thought of as a manly Peter Pan) hears her singing and comes to her window sill. As most fairy tales go, it is love at first sight.
This was my favorite part of the film: he takes her on an adventure on his bumblebee and shows her the fairy world. They are both singing “Let Me Be Your Wings” – it is symbolic for his promise of love. He is telling her he will be her wings (because she doesn’t have any) and show her the world. A moment that sticks out to me is when she touches the water and it twinkles like stars in the sky. They proceed to dance on the water and then fly up through the air, Cornelius’s wings leaving a trail of gold sparkles behind them.
I remember feeling incredibly giddy every time I saw this scene. I would get up and dance around my room, pretending I had my own fairy prince who would come take me away. I wanted my own pair of wings so I could know what it was like to fly. The closest thing I had to flying was jumping on my bed. I desperately wanted to escape reality and go on a magical adventure.
The rest of the movie is about Thumbelina’s adventures as she tries to find her way home. Other creatures hear her singing and want her to themselves, so they kidnap her. Cornelius and Thumbelina are eventually reunited and marry, living happily ever after, and Thumbelina somehow grows a pair of wings. Painfully predictable, I know, but what is life without happy endings?
A song in the movie that still resonates with me is “Follow Your Heart” – a swallow sings this to Thumbelina when she says finding her way back home is impossible. He tells her “you’re sure to do impossible things if you follow your heart, your dreams will fly on magical wings when you follow your heart.”
Thumbelina is an anchor to my childhood. When most kids outgrew make-believe and fantasy, I didn’t. It was an essential component to my survival. Although I am an adult now, I still incorporate elements of fantasy into reality. I still believe in fairies. I still believe in magic. I’m still following my heart.