The empty space

Remember Disney's theme song?  "Fairy tales can come true.  It can happen to you if you're young at heart."

I heard those words in a more innocent time.  A time when fairy tales were mostly pictures in my head, drawn by words upon a page by the brothers Grimm, or the occasional school play of Babes in the woods or once a movie about Cinderella.  I watched Wendy sew Peter Pan's shadow on through the black and white window of our old Zenith and winced with every stitch, then clapped with all my heart to save Tinkerbell.

It was a time when having a way to get to the library was a rare treat, so I gobbled up the books on my father's shelves and dreamed the rest myself.

It was a time that left my imagination lots of room to expand and be original.

It kept my heart young and the fairy tales came true!  Of course there were ogres and trolls, but there were also little princes and glorious dragons and, just like Puff, they stayed if I wanted them to.

It is the silence that kept me young, the space to dream and think, plot and plan, the empty room left for me to fill with myself.  If I were to give my loved ones anything, it would be that room.