DOING FAIR(L)Y GOOD

DOING FAIR(

The autumn full moon is bright enough she could give the tired street lamps a night off from their fluorescent duties. The slight chill in the wind pricks my skin when it blows and I’d objectively be more comfortable with the jacket I left at home after insisting it didn’t go with my outfit. The dark windows of the downtown high-rises peer down quietly on my friends and I as we jaunt down the worn cement sidewalk, headed to dinner plans made weeks in advance because it’s the only way we can sync our schedules. I’m only half-listening to their overlapping chatter about difficult GSIs or potential weekend plans because my eyes are tracing the bottom of the storefronts, looking for pieces of perfectly rounded, colorful wood hiding the lives of tiny magical beings. It’s been almost three years since I started this search but I’ve yet to manage to find even one. The secrets of the Ann Arbor Fairy Doors have yet to reveal themselves to me, to guide my wandering gaze to the doorsteps of the delicate installations spread across the shops of downtown.

It’s always this time of year, when winter’s impatient approach turns the trees crimson and golden before stripping the trees bare, that my mind wanders back to the days of elementary school recess my dearest friends and I spent dreaming up our own fairy worlds, buying into the wonders of the make-believe, letting our imaginations run far away and never feeling any need to rope them back in. There was some untouchable magic in our innocence. As I’ve gotten older, it’s not that I wonder where that blessing of bliss went. Growing up pierced my skin from every direction and I could feel myself getting older with each day that began with the deafening screaming of my alarm clock and not my mom’s warm touch. I lost that bliss when I was handed my first planner and told I needed to pick a major when I barely knew myself. I’ve

OING FAIR(L )Y GOOD

hardly lived, how can you expect me to make any permanent choices? I could probably circle the day on the calendar my childhood left me. But it doesn’t stop me from spending my hours daydreaming about how to get back to those elementary afternoons.

Take me back to the towering, enchanted oak trees our younger selves would wrap our tiny arms around and proclaim them to be our cozy homes. Take me back to the fields of soft, green grass and glowing dandelions that we slipped behind our ears and deemed capable of imparting powers on each of us. Take me back to the soft-hearted whispers of the story we strung together, each day bigger and more spellbinding than the last. Or at least let me spend my days among the tiny fairies tucked away in the corners of Ann Arbor. I’m certain my days would be less mundane knowing what thoughts race through their miniature minds, gossiping about the shoppers who bypass naive to their existence. I remain convinced that my nine-year-old self would have found every fairy house in Ann Arbor in a single day. Maybe by pure chance. But I think she’d be drawn to them by their inherent youthful magic. I envy every child who doesn’t have to stain their neck to search for the tiny doors.

Maybe I should bury my hands in the dirt until I can remember the way the fresh air used to feel in my lungs when I would spend hours jumping in the fall leaves and I could still count my age on my ten fingers. Maybe I should lie on my back in the grass until the ivy that snakes up the stones of my house warps into the kinds of pictures my younger mind would have found in the summer clouds.

Maybe the day I find my first fairy door, I’ll do just that.

WRITER SHELBY JENKINS GRAPHIC DESIGNER CAMILLE ANDREW