Storytelling for Midsummer Magic

     Saturday, June 26, would have been my and Rocky's 34th wedding anniversary. I knew it would be an emotional day for me, so I asked my granddaughter to come be with me. I had planned to take her to dinner, but better yet we were invited to a storytelling party in Jonesborough. 

     One of my new friends, Pam Miller, had been celebrating Mid-Summers Night on the closest June Saturday for the past few years in which her visitors would read from Shakespeare's Mid-Summer Night's Dream in Pam's backyard garden. This year she decided to switch it to a storytelling event and asked tellers to choose something appropriate to fairies or nature or fairytales. I was one of the tellers as was my friends, Molly Catron, and Linda Poland, and a couple new folks I had not met before.

This is Pam Miller, Hostess

     I was dependent on my iPhone for pictures because I couldn't find my Canon before I left the house. So I did not get pictures of Pam's charming "Fairy Tale Cottage." So I'll describe what I could see of it because the living room was full of people on folding chairs mixed in with antique furniture Pam has been collecting for years. First her front porch was hung with buntings of white gauzy muslin and mini lights. The winding path to the cottage which is well set back from the Main Street of Jonesborough was lined with solar lights which her family had brought to her for their annual summer visit. The feel of the living room was light and airy with crystal chandelier pulls, cut-glass lamps, white walls, white curtains edged with cutwork, a white brick fireplace with a mantel holding numerous glass candlesticks with lit white candles. Red and white wine was served in old American glass footed tumblers. The dining room table held snack foods, drinks, and light desserts. Books of fairytales were abundant lying on the sofa table, desk, and coffee table.

This is my close friend, Molly Catron. Molly is serving the wine here, not chugging it down!

     As soon as Jessica and I entered, we were crowned with a tiara wreath of lavender, so that delicious fragrance delighted us for the rest of the evening. My wreath now hangs on the cupboard in my private bathroom and should stay freshly aromatic for the rest of the summer.

Rapunzel

Granny Sue inspired me to go looking at trees a week or so ago when she wrote about the Greenman and posted some photos she had taken. She had been inspired by a friend's blog that she follows. See how this internet communication works? Sharing interests are so much more entertaining than the dull letters we used to write, like, "We are fine here...how are you?"

Here at Castle Yonder, we are fine because we are surrounded by trees since we live in the middle of 84 acres of up-and-down mountain "knobs." I have long appreciated my arbor friends, and grieved over the loss of about 60 of them, mostly huge oaks growing on hillsides, during the Great Ice Storm of 2003. (We lost a beautiful elm, also, that looked over and guarded our home.) However, I had never looked for faces in them even though I've loved fairytales where the trees take on human characteristics. 

I'm not able to go hiking through the woods now, so I have lost many opportunities to find tree faces. But I am consoled to know they are out there, friendly and protective. Now I have to stick to the road, often just driving the car then getting out and walking a short distance. We even had our road paved because we couldn't stand being jostled and bumped by all the potholes that developed, and asphalt is not friendly to lots of flora. It's amazing what survives on the edges, and even grows through sometimes, but I am sorry that we are leaving a sizable footprint.

I didn't find any Greenman faces, but I did find the fallen and deceased, youthful buds, and mossy feet. I also found this shagbark hickory that made me think about the Rapunzel fairytale. I copied the photo, then cropped the "face" and falling tresses, but I'm not sure if she is Rapunzel or the witch. What do you think?