Tale From an Obsolete World

 

Future Golden Remains

     

     I am an avid admirer of the artwork of Jeannie Lynn Paske's Obsolete World. I have loved fantasy and fairytales for as long as I can remember and the stories I feel taking shape around the edges of her paintings haunt me.

     I bought a box of her notecards a year ago to use for my grandchildren’s birthdays and began writing snippets of stories for each occasion to match the artwork on the card and the character of the celebrated child. This week I wrote one for our oldest granddaughter who is growing up so fast I want to catch her by the shirttail to slow her down.

Silent For A Time

     Sofeea is an Elemental. She has long arms and lean legs like the gangly roots and spindly limbs of willow trees. She is so slight that a puff of wind could blow her into tomorrow. Sometimes her friends laugh and call her Twiggy.

     But when Twiggy turns cartwheels—hand over hand, heels in the sky—then those long spindly legs weave the wind into lace as delicate as snowflakes, and those gangly arms float her body like bubbles of light over the uneven ground.

     It makes her friends laugh; but they are not laughing at Twiggy. They are not laughing at anything funny, silly or absurd. They are laughing because those wind-weaving, light-gliding cartwheels that Twiggy makes are painting joyfuls in their hearts—all the brush-stroked, chalk-smudged, crayon-bright, rainbow-edged colors of joy.

     That is what they love most about Sofeea: the nimble-footed joyfuls that twirl inside her like a cartwheel and make them laugh.

     And that is what we love most about our Girlybird.

artwork by Jeannie Lynn Paske