The Magical Bird: a Contemporary Fairy Tale

Once upon a not-too-distant time, there was a young eight-year-old girl who sought refuge inside the graceful, downward-sweeping branches of an old weeping willow. The massive trunk had weathered sun, wind, and rain like a stalwart sentinel, standing guard equally against anger, pain, and meanness. The bark had become compressed at the willow's base by the weight of centuries, as if the lofty crown had tried to push its way back into the ground. The long branches split the sunlight entering the circled space into wavering lines. But the magic of early Spring brought out blooming catkins, creating polka-dot shadows on the emerging soft grass.

This space was her haven, the young girl knew, as she parted branches to step into her realm. The season's first grass shoots had become intertwined by tiny purple flowers scattered along a pearl-chain of round green leaves, with an occasional ladybug creating an imaginary clasp. A spindly inch worm bent and stretched its way up a blade of grass, almost camouflaged in greens. Bees buzzed the catkins, and there was an occasional spider, or two, but she was not afraid, because these spirits of Nature had become her friends. She was about to make a new one.

This Spring day, driven by the quiet or by curiosity, in through the branches popped a magical bird on a mission. While flying blithely to the ground beside the young girl, the bird's feathers wavered from plain in the shade to iridescent with vibrant hues. From pale gray emerged a shimmering pink under belly. Olive green wings glowed emerald in the sunlight, while a dark gray back and tail transformed into a flash of deep aqua. The bird's chin was the palest blue in the shadows but sparkled silver in the light, along with an already-gorgeous golden cap glistening into the most electric orange-red. This metamorphosis of color hopped onto the young girl's hand as she leaned up against the trunk, somewhat bemused.

Piercing black eyes neatly hidden by a black eye-stripe mask gazed at the young girl and chirped in a rhythmic cadence, "How are you? How are you? How are you?"

Blinking with bewilderment, she stammered, "S...s...a...d." Then still a little shaky but with more realized composure, she replied, "I'm sad."

"Follow your bliss! Follow your bliss! Follow your bliss!" The magical bird trilled this instruction, gently rising into the air with a whisper of wing-powered lift. The articulate bird rose and rose, repeating a call of "Gee-O! Gee-O! Gee-O!" while spiraling higher into the top of the willow's tree-branched dome.

"Hi Gee-O! My name’s Gemma," the young girl replied, as if understanding the bird's call intuitively.

Then in a flash of radiant colors and with one last "Gee-O!" call, the magical bird was gone.

Stunned into rising disbelief, the young girl pushed back tears against a cacophony of competing negative thoughts like, "there are no such things as magical birds" and "wild birds can't converse." But, as she began to breathe the renewing vigor of Spring in her enchanted willow haven, she realized that this magical bird came here to find her, and they exchanged names. Astonished with the idea, she exclaimed loudly to the universe, "I met a magical bird named Gee-O who cared about my feelings!" She tiptoed into her house to get a piece of paper and a pencil, since the willow was in the front yard, because she had to write down all of what just happened. She no longer felt sad.

Gemma began to hide several note pages in an old hollowed-out nest carved high up into the trunk, but by climbing on the exposed roots of the grand willow’s base, she could reach it. Her hidden cache here was the first of many blissful written secrets. This nesting cave faced the street, so it would remain anonymous from prying eyes inside the house. Gemma had learned to keep her stories in her head anyway because her mother would throw out any paper where she had written them down. "Just get in the boat and stop fighting the current by swimming upstream." her mother scolded. "You are no different or better than anyone else," her father shouted. Gemma just nodded and had no idea why she warranted either of these rebukes. She felt anonymous, that is, until she met her magical bird.

For the next few days, Gemma listened intently to every bird sound echoing within her willow home to identify their voices. A pair of doves always crooned a soft "Coo-coo, coooo, coooo" to each other, while chickadees danced clinging to the willow bark as they chirped their name with a rapid "De-de-de-de-de, De-de-de-de-de." Red cardinals sent staccato "Chip, Chip, Chip" melodies into the Spring breeze, and Gemma began to hear the rapid hammering of woodpeckers.

But she had not seen the feathers or heard the voice of her magical bird, just yet.

While attempting to retrieve her writing pages after a late Spring rain, Gemma was greeted with the rapid advance of variegated black-and-white feathers belonging to a male woodpecker. She quickly discovered three round white eggs in the nesting cave partially hidden by her cached pages. The woodpecker’s defensiveness did not last long. Somehow Gemma imagined that her magical bird would approve of her pages being transformed into guarding the secrets of new bird life. She did not disturb the nest, leaving her pages there.

For various reasons, she never recovered them, except for what she remembered in her heart. Gemma snuck out from the house a new sheet of paper and drew the scenes of her first and only meeting with her magical bird. Like origami, she folded and pleated the paper so that it fit inside the sole of her shoe, so she could wander anywhere she wanted with it intact. That was enough, for now, as the woodpecker eggs were incubated, hatched, and the babies eventually fledged under the watchful eyes of their attentive parents. Gemma watched, too, as they continued to care for their fledglings even after each one had left the nesting cave. "Nice," she told them.

However, now she had to find a new expression of her bliss. The activities of the nesting woodpeckers had taken over for a while as a distraction, a pattern her magical bird perhaps wanted her to learn early, and something she recognized later in her own adult world. But at this moment, Gemma was not exactly sure if bliss was supposed to stay the same throughout her life, which seemed nice as a thought at times, but rather boring at others.

All she understood now was that bliss balanced the pain of anonymity, of not belonging, and of unkind words. Seeking her bliss stopped the loneliness. Finding her bliss made her feel brave, even magical. Thus, Gemma decided to become blissfully alive by reading books in her willow-branched home. The catkins were long gone, having been replaced by a multitude of long, feather-shaped, overlapping leaves. These kept the interior cool, dry, and private as Summertime waned when Fall approached.

Therefore, Gemma decided to see if bits of her apples, plums, or water in unmissed jar lids would bribe her magical bird into returning. Until then, she would simply have to make do with writing notes in her book margins or on extra end pages. Sometimes, she carefully removed a special end page that did not even have a page number printed on it, so this could be folded and hidden in her shoe. She really thought the blank page was waiting for her to give it purpose.

On a day when Fall's chill wafted on the wind, large maple leaves floated by Gemma's almost-empty weeping willow branches. She imagined fairies and tiny elves were piloting these leafy giants, while clinging to them like kites whisked about on a gusty adventure. These fairy kites also heralded the return of her magical bird, whose feathers equally altered between light and shadows in the Fall as they did in the Spring. Gee-O's airy entrance was marked by an excited trill of "Gemma, Gemma, Gemma!"

"Oh Gee-O! I have missed you," she exclaimed.

"I have watched over you and learned well how you have communed with Nature, taking care of all her creatures, even if you are not cared for yourself. Thank you for the apples and plums."

Only now, Gee-O's perfect diction was not chirping but heard in Gemma's mind. Her astonished reply immediately advanced to the same. "I'm glad you liked them!"

"I have always had my words," revealed Gee-O. "However, the Moon Goddess who rules the night, planets, and magical animals had to see if you were open to the idea of magical communication."

Wide-eyed, Gemma nodded in agreement.

"We won't meet again in my feathered form, but you must remember that the seasons of life rise and warm, then fall and freeze, but always rise and cycle again. You have learned this despite cruelty, but you must find the words that sustain you. I will be close by, here, always." Gee-O pointed his emerald wing toward Gemma's heart.

A tear froze on her cheek. It had become a diamond of promises. "Thank you, my magical bird, for coming back to explain." These words, likewise, she shared only through heart and mind.

Gee-O then whispered one last thought to plant it permanently in her heart. "We are soul friends, deeply connected through our care for Nature and all her magic. I have learned it is your birthday soon, so I have procured a gift for you." Gee-O floated to a pile of gathering leaves, jumping on them until a little black notebook appeared.

Gemma gasped out loud this time, while Gee-O responded with an actual warbled note of joy.

"Yes, this journal is also magical. All you must do is think 'Protect.' You will be the only one who can see it. Trust me on this. Record your bliss and missteps here, but always remember, the cycle, like the seasons, continues."

Gee-O alighted on Gemma's hand. She responded with, "You will always be my magical bird." But her enchanted voice woke her up from a dreamy slumber. She was holding an actual small black notebook. As Gemma stood up, she felt something hard in her shoe. Reaching down, she found a pebble that sparkled both like diamonds and iridescent feathers. She tucked it into a hidden pocket inside her magical journal, forgetting about it.

**********

That winter, her parents divorced, so Gemma spent a lot of happier time with her Aunt Luna.

**********

As the decades of Gemma's life advanced through college, she still felt like a wanderer. When she didn’t know what to do or where to go next, her heart echoed, "Follow your bliss." Everywhere she went, she added pages of experiences to her small black notebook, in which she found folded drawings of a magical bird and a mysteriously iridescent diamond. Oddly enough, any time Gemma needed money, she obtained $20,000, but the stone was only considered collateral and returned to her. The debt had been magically repaid.

In the decade of her 30's, Gemma bravely became a teacher. She wanted to assure students that life was a cycle of change with uncertainty, but also of promise. She secretly established a scholarship for $20,000 that never seemed to run dry but extended her magic to others. Gemma was full of encouragement for her students by providing means to broaden their horizons. She often reminded them to follow their bliss. They wrote her words in their notebooks. One day, a student asked where she first heard the phrase.

Gemma smiled. "A little birdy told me, so we can all learn to live happily ever after. Right?”

**********