Once Upon a Time
Fairy tales, screen time and fireflies
Hi Friend,
I feel that time has been behaving badly ever since the pandemic, or maybe even before. I was talking to a client a few days ago, following Memorial Day, who mentioned that it felt really sad this year. Our conversation caused me to reflect on my own memories and associations with the holiday, how it used to herald summer vacation— long days, water balloons, Hawaiian punch, fireflies…
Did you know the fireflies are not ok? It keeps me up at night, some nights, when I think about those creatures who used to give us so much whimsy and wonder are slowly going extinct because of our light pollution. They use their little glowing bodies to communicate to one another, but with all our house lights and car light and street lights, they can’t see/hear each other anymore.
A memory: 4th of July, just across the Potomac in Virginia on a friend’s farm. We were waiting to see the fireworks in the distance, lighting up DC. Under dim twinkle lights we spread out blankets and shared food, waiting for the display to begin. Except before it began, we had our own show. There was a big oak tree in the yard, and suddenly it lit up with intermittent glow. The fireflies in the tree were communicating with each other. I remember how the group grew quiet as we watched, and only to be interrupted the booming of fireworks beginning across the river.
Another memory: Years later, paddling down the Thu Bon River in Hoi An, Vietnam. Lanterns lit up the way, as the sun had just set and the full moon was hanging low in the sky. As we turned near a small bridge, lined with bushes, we slowed. The bushes were glowing. Not the sporadic, chaotic glow of our American fireflies. They all glowed in unison, a slow blinking on and off. I marveled at the difference in behavior and wondered, giggling to myself, if the American fireflies had been influenced by our individualistic culture, and if these fireflies understood the collectivist mentality of the people living nearby.
There are no pictures of either of these events. Social media was around, but it wasn’t what it is now (and I am so, so thankful for that). But these memories remain strong, despite the lack of evidence.
In moments where time is behaving badly, I think about fairytales. How we often begin them with “Once Upon a Time” but actually, in other cultures and languages, the translation is a little stranger. Sometimes it’s like “In a place without time” or “It has been told and told and told” or “It was and was not”. The purpose, of course, is to help us suspend our concepts of time and rationality, and enter into a new way of being, to receive old wisdom. To enter into a portal, a timeless state, where these messages can be transmitted from old.
One I’ve been chewing on recently is called The Maiden King, or The Maiden Tsar. There’s a lot of symbolism and twists and turns throughout the whole story, which I won’t get into too deeply here, but there is one scene I keep replaying:
There is a boy named Ivan who encounters a Maiden King: powerful, beautiful, independent. She asks him to meet her at a specific time and place so that they might run away together and get married. Ivan has a jealous stepmother who wants to keep him under her thumb, so she convinces his tutor, a man Ivan trusted completely, to place an enchanted pin in Ivan’s neck. Each time the pin is set, Ivan falls into a deep sleep, losing all memory of the Maiden King and the promise he made to her. He misses his appointment three times.
On the third missed meeting, the Maiden King slips Ivan a message telling him that his tutor has been betraying him all along. When Ivan wakes and reads it, he understands the full depth of what was done to him. He cuts off the tutor’s head, and embarks on a journey to find the Maiden King.
There are many things in our lives that cause us to forget our true mission. Many things that cause time to behave badly, to move quickly, to distract us from the messages of our natural selves. For me (and I imagine for many folks) that has a lot to do with technology. Hours will go by where I get sucked into the portal of social media. I think we pick up our devices, longing for some sort of satiation of our hunger for connection but too often emerge still ravenous and depleted. It steals time from us, with a false glow of communication.
Obviously, I’m on social media right now as I write this, as are you reading this. And I don’t imagine there’s a way to put this cat back in the bag, so to speak, and the same goes for AI. But we can still choose how we use it, how we engage with it. Can we get the message to remove the pin from our necks in order to go on the epic journey of our lives? Can we reorient away from the screens toward real connection, getting quiet and dark enough to see the glow of each other?
Until next time,
J
What I’m Reading
Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed (By Paolo Freire) I cannot believe this book was written in 1992. In some ways, it’s a clarification of his earlier works, but in other ways, it brings a more personal context to those works, how he came to believe what he believed, and how it still applies to his contemporary reality (and how it eeirly continues to apply to our current reality).
Martyr! (By Kaveh Akbar) I haven’t finished this one yet, but thus far I’m getting themes of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and meaning making. I know it sounds dark, but it’s written in a lovely, funny, approachable style where those themes are not overwhelming or heavy handed. They just are there, matter of factly. This book was recommended to me by a client (yes therapists do read your recs!) and I’m loving it so far.
What I’m Watching:
Glee (Hulu): Yes, I’m watching Glee. Yes, it is as corny as we all remember. Yes, it is a form of millennial dissociation/copium. No, I will not be elaborating.
I’m not ok that the fireflies are not ok 😭✨ Jessica, thank you for this poignant piece of your heart