Tales From the Burning Prairie

When I was little I had an invisible friend. I hesitate to call her imaginary, because she was very real to me even if nobody else could see her. Her name was Foxy, and she was a shape-shifter. She looked, by turns, like a 10-foot tall Chinese lady (I came up with that one at about age 5 or so), a kid, or a big fox walking on her hind legs. She got blamed for many of the stunts that I pulled, she frequently pushed me out of bed, and she spent an inordinate amount of her time in the attic (mostly when I wasn’t around to play). Foxy was a friend when I needed one and a source of amusement for my parents. In fact, my mother has long threatened to write a book called “Life With Foxy”, but since she’s been threatening for the better part of four decades she can’t mind if I do it first.

As I grew older and made other friends, I no longer had to rely on the friend that I had made with my mind. She gradually faded but I always had the feeling that she was there just beneath the surface. My mother would talk about Foxy and the book she would write, telling me her favorite stories of my friend. Eventually even my memories of her faded into the background. I grew up and left home, married and had children of my own, and completely forgot about Foxy. Until.

Until one afternoon when my son was just a baby. We had been to visit my parents in Claremore and were on our way home to Tulsa. This was when I was still driving my favorite back way, Keetonville Road, too fast as usual. The road curves and climbs and dips, following the land. It veers close to the Verdigris River and then away again. Houses, humble and not-so-humble, hug the bases and sides of the rolling, green hills. And there are houses nestled so deep in the trees that they can’t be seen from the road; no indication if they are trailers or mansions, with only mailboxes to mark their places. We had just taken the curve in front of the soccer fields (they were empty that day) when something crossed the road ahead of me. At first I thought it was a dog, then I spotted the tail and the markings on its little red face and knew I was looking at a fox. I had seen her in time to slow down and stop safely, luckily no one else was on the road that day. I knew the fox was a female, probably trying to care for her young. She was stopped right in the middle of the road, just as I was, staring back at me as I stared at her. It was no illusion, she looked directly into my eyes and spoke to me.

As clearly as if she had opened her mouth to speak, I heard with my mind or with my heart: Slow down, pay attention. Such sage advice from a lowly creature (and to a lowly creature), and how timely. Had I not slowed down or paid attention, the mother fox might never have returned to her babies. And with my baby snug and secure in the backseat, I realized that should I not heed her common sense advice I, too, might someday never return to my babies.

Even now, when I am frenzied and flustered, I try to remember the words of the fox: Slow Down, Pay Attention. What might I miss if I don’t pay heed to what the fox said. What might you miss?

Tiny houses are everywhere, you just have to know where to look. Driving one of my favorite country back roads to Claremore today, I saw two of them. One was neat and tidy, blue with white trim-a perfect house in miniature. The other could have been a well-house, it was near the property line and looked like a weathered clapboard shack. These aren’t just small, adult-scale homes, nobody over 4 feet tall could hope to even go inside.

You can buy playhouses that look just like real houses if only real houses were that impossibly charming. You might think of these as a recent inventions, but I know of one that is older than my mother. It stood silent sentinel on the road between Miami, Ok and Grand Lake O’ The Cherokees as long as she could remember. Every time we’d drive through Fairland, she or my Gammie would tell the story of the local doctor who had the architectural marvel built for his beloved daughter. I remember nothing of the story past this point. Was I ever told what became of the beloved daughter? Did she die tragically young? Did she break her father’s heart by eloping with the wrong suitor? Or did she live a full, long life complete with children and grandchildren to play in her father’s gift. Perhaps I will never find out what became of the girl, I don’t even know if her lovely playhouse still stands that silent sentinel. Maybe that beautiful gesture has fallen prey to the developer’s urge, I hope not. But every time I see a tiny house I am reminded of that father’s sweet gift to his daughter’s fleeting childhood.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could take a little bit of that magic into adulthood? The magic that turns a simple playhouse into a fortress or a fairy castle would come in handy when faced with the routine tasks of the everyday. An elfin-sized house would be easy to care for, even if rather cramped. But instead of pining for my long-ended childhood, I just hope to cherish every moment of my son’s and daughter’s childhoods. While the years may pass in a drowsy haze of eternal school years and endless summers for them, they will fly by in that proverbial blink of an eye for me. And before I know it, my babies will be grown and gone with babies of their own. Even if I never build a wee, magic house for them, I hope they look back and remember their childhoods as beautiful and filled with love.