Fairies On My Bra Strap

Dear Jessica Brennan,

In this world that often celebrates things like money and power over honesty and love, it is important to find a way to keep your truth with you.   Sometimes the things that make you you, are also quite innocently lost in the expectations of family and employers, and day to day life, so I have a little trick.  Every day I wear this button on my bra strap where it cannot be seen.

Okay, I’m aware that I already have the reputation of being a bit wacky, and that’s fine as far as I’m concerned. You know how unhinged I get around beige-loving people, with their beige houses, beige outlook, beige cars and beige attitude, so this system of wearing the pin actually works for me.

My little “I do believe in fairies” button that I received at a performance of Peter Pan several years ago, reminds me that my imagination is still with me, the characters I have created in stories over my lifetime are sitting right next to me and all that makes me unique and, well me, isn’t lost in daily chores or even in the sides of me that are more attractive to the corporate world.  Things like project and systems management, leadership and organizational ability – all valid and useful but not explosively creative.

Sometimes throughout the day I will remember momentarily that I have fairies scampering up my bra strap and it will make me smile and my plain little office will start to ooze vibrant colour and misty gardens full of puppets and gnomes, dancing and laughing. Happy faces of these familiar friends peek out from around corners, exotic perfumes tickle my nose and ideas for new adventures spring out of the walls and dangle like streamers and jungle vines from the ceiling brushing against my shoulders. I will look out my window and find that the parking lot has filled up with a buoyant sea and chipmunks will sail by in gingham dinner jackets waving like royalty. The fluorescent lights above me are replaced by sprays of sunlight and the carpeted floor with pine needles and moss.  I absorb this feeling for a few minutes, then order them all away again for another day, and carry on in a sensible, more grown-up world.  The serious one, where money seems to live – or so I’m told.

My imagination is my oxygen, but everyone has a special thing that they need to explore in order to be real, that thing that makes them feel like they are welcome in their own skin wherever they are. May we all endeavour to carry our truth next to our heart one way or another, even if it means we have to pin it to our bra strap.

Love Mum

xo