TRDC - The Fairy Princess Dress.

This weeks prompt: Write a piece - 600 word limit - about finding a forgotten item of clothing in the back of a drawer or closet. Let us know how the item was found, what it is, and why it's so meaningful to you or your character.

It's a good thing that I had thrown all the clothes into a pile in the middle of the floor outside my closet because when I flopped to the floor in "Muffin Top Despair" it softened the landing. Perspiration and frustration gave my face a glowing sheen as I rolled my eyes at my reflection in the full length mirror on the closet door. I puckered my lips and blew up my cheeks until I resembled the Pillsbury Dough Boy, which is exactly who I felt like. My oldest two daughters came wandering in the bedroom to see what I was up to and flopped into the pile of clothes beside me.

"Whatcha doin Mommy"

"Mommy is trying to find something to look pretty in so I can go on a date with Daddy and knock    his socks off."

"You gonna take his socks off?"

Giggles filled the room as they imagined Mommy wrestling Daddy to get his socks off. My big eyed 3 year old in all of her fashion sense that thinks snow boots, tutus and undershirts is the new "black dress" began to hold up some of the items discarded in the floor.

"What 'bout this? This pretty? This take socks off?"

Her chatter continued as my 5 year old began to look at the items still dangling from the hangers in the closet. She reached in the back and tugged until the velvety blue dress fluttered to the floor. Her fingers rubbed the soft, luxurious fabric and I heard her suck her breath in.

"Ohhhh Mommy, it's a princess dress"

"I can't wear that one sweetie, I've grown a bit since I wore it last time."


"Please Mommy, be a princess."

Her deep brown eyes pierced mine as I took it from her hands where she offered it as though it was some type of magic fabric. How on earth do you explain "Fat" to such young girls? How do you explain what they did to your bodies for 9 months and how nothing is where it used to be? Deciding to just humor her for a moment I began to slip into the soft folds. Slipping isn't quite the right word. Slipping into it is what I used to do 5 years and 3 kids ago. This was more like shoving biscuit dough back into a popped can. I finally got it all the way up but there was no way the zipper was going to budge an inch up the back.

"Mommy! You are beautiful like a fairy princess!! Look at you! I wanna be like you when I get big."

I refused to turn around and look into the mirror. Looking at my daughters eyes dance while they grabbed my hands to dance with them, I closed my eyes and dared myself to see myself as they did. The dress had once fit a more slender woman. A woman who had control over herself and a confidence that dared her to buy the low plunging tight blue velvet dress. A woman who sat across from the restaurant table from her newly married husband and dared to run her foot up his leg while whispering bold innuendos. I blushed as I recalled that night and quickly opened my eyes back to the moment I was in.

That fairy princess that my daughters danced around was really there. She was in that moment. As I took the dress back off and hung it back where it belonged in the back of the closet, I was tempted to berate myself a little more about how I had let things go. How after having my 3 daughters nothing was where it used to be anymore...then I realized that everything on me had to move to make way for how large my heart had grown. A heart enlarged and overflowing with the love I had for my children. I may not actually be a fairy princess, but as my fingers rubbed the fabric of the hanging dress I prayed silently that my daughter would indeed be just like me when she got big. That she would be someone's fairy princess in a blue dress as she was celebrated for being beautiful just the way she was.

*This story is NOT fiction...I AM a fairy princess.

On The Road Home

Usually a hairpin turn in the road causes me to grip the steering wheel tighter. I try not to imagine spinning out of control and shooting off the asphalt into the side ditch, but not on the road home. As soon as I have finished my errands and I turn the car towards home, my whole body relaxes. I turn off the main road and leave the hurried commuters behind me. As they speed off to wherever life has required them to be, the first thing I see is the weathered, gray barn looming close to the road home. The speed limit down this curvy, narrow road is 25mph, but my heart always makes me go 15mph.

There have only been a handful of times that I have ever met another car on the road home and although you must slow to a crawl and straddle off the road to allow them to pass, it's nice to see their smiling face through their windshield. Along with the smile is the customary wave that you see in the country of a friend. When you live on a country road you know the cars, their occupants but rarely their names. There is the old rusted truck with just a whisper of the bright blue that used to cover its body. You can hear it coming well before you see it and it will be driven by a old man that wears a ball cap. His face is so wrinkled that the smile is just a deeper crease below his crinkled eyes. His wave is big with purpose and the black and white dog that bounces around the bed of the truck will run to the side, tongue flopping and greet you as well with a friendly bark. You might pass a golden Buick luxury car. The outside gleams with fresh polish but is not nearly as bright as the smile of the polished little old lady that guides the car on the road home. Her wave is friendly but just as regal as the car she drives when she goes to pick through the veggies at the local market.

After I pass the weathered barn that is no longer capable of providing shelter from the winds through the gaping cracks in its boards, I turn into the first hair pin curve. Rather than grip the wheel with whitened knuckles, I feel the stress of the day whoosh out of me in a breath that says I am on the road home. The trees alongside the road begin to grow closer together as if tightening their guardian force against the outside world. Their branches lean over the road providing a natural tunnel allowing sunlight to dapple the road. After a few more turns the trees open up again to allow for the split log fence that houses the friendly faces of lazy cows that hang through the wires to eagerly snatch the moist grass that is bound to be better on the other side. As my car passes by them, they pause only a moment to nod their greeting through their munching. The reddish bull always stands a little back from the fence watching sternly as the new calves kick up their heels and scramble behind their mothers at the foreign sound of a car engine. In time they will know the sound of the cars that pass and will nod their heads while barely stopping their grazing.

After the first field of cows, I will pass the rusted gate that has a chain hanging through it that used to hold it closed. It has never been locked as long as I have lived here, but is slightly pushed open which allows for the three brown dogs of the country fraternity to bound through it and greet or warn anyone that comes down the road. As my car bounces past them on the old, broken asphalt that needs some attention from the county we are escorted by several other dogs that come to join in the great chase of the day. They always tear up the ground behind us until we reach the first pond and then they relinquish the prize of catching the car to the job of busily sniffing through the tall brush that borders the road. The brush blocks all view of the hay fields behind it, but as much as it seems like a narrow corridor that should be claustrophobic it is actually the most open, free feel as birds flush from the growth as I pass by.

As I begin to climb the hill towards my home, I pass another field of cows. These are my neighbors and I know them all by sight. The white fuzzy matron who watches over all the calves born is usually closest to the fence. She's learned that when the faded yellow school bus stops there every afternoon that the children who get off often have sugar treats in their pockets and her greedy nature stands patiently waiting for those lumps of sugar and pocket lint. The cautious black cow with her white face stands a little behind her. She draws courage to come for those treats by always allowing the matron to go first. They are always the first I see on the climb to my home.

The brick of the house always looks a little foreign in all the nature around it, but never unfriendly. No matter how the sun hits our home it always looks warm, drawing you closer. The porches on the front and back shelter the rocking chairs and benches that just wait for us to come sit and watch the clouds float by, a sinking sun or the acrobatics of the birds that grace our skies. As I turn off into our driveway a sparkle often catches my eyes. The pond across the street with its two ducks catches any available light and rather than hold it captive; shoots it into a million different glittering reflections. The diamond sparkles off the water magically dance around the always paddling ducks. I am home.

No matter where my day took me the road home always strips off the stress and replaces it with an earthy dust that cleanses my spirit. On the road home I am renewed.

Wordless Wednesday

Time for Spring