I came across Lisa’s site, Lisa Reiter – Sharing the Story while reading Irene’s recent ‘Bite Size Memoir‘ posts. I intended to ‘join in’ at the beginning but here we are, week three, although just making it before the deadline today!
Thank you to both lovely ladies for this opportunity as I jump in now!
In Lisa’s words: ‘Bite size memoir is designed to help anyone record some personal memoir in small manageable bites‘ and each week she invites us to do so using a prompt she gives out each Friday.
You can find out more about this challenge by clicking on the link to Lisa’s site above.
Meanwhile, here is my 150 word bite size memoir for this week’s prompt:
Magic and Fairy Tales
I believed in fairies once but I wasn’t so keen on ‘fairy tales’, finding them dark and yes, grim.
My fairies, tiny, mystical creatures, lived with their pixie friends in the woods behind my house in the English village where once I lived.
Their world was safe and peaceful; I imagined them flitting from flower to flower, bathing in dewdrops and singing so sweetly that even the hedgehogs would stop to listen.
When I walked alone in the woods, I breathed in the respite of their tranquil world as it eased the suffocation of my reality.
Yet, when I write of the past, sometimes at its darkest, I remember the little girl who searched for fairy circles and picked flowers for pressing in scrapbooks; I smile at this child, mesmerized was she by the pure magic of finding speckled blue eggs warming inside a blackbird’s nest.
This, my true magic.
A View From My Summerhouse 
I LIKE… brilliant… a fairy tale…
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Sooooo happy you like…thanks so much Bulldog 🙂
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I love this Sherri – Having had a frenetic week, I can feel your considered pace when writing – a multi-layered message to me this week. (I am that hedgehog needing to slow up a bit!) So glad you were able to join in and thank you for the generous introduction in your post. Lisa x
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Hi Lisa! So happy to hear from you, thanks so much for this opportunity and I’m really glad that my comments are getting through at last! Had a very stressful and frustrating time of it last week…! Hope your week becomes less frenetic and yes, oh to be like that hedgehog, I wish too! So glad you enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to many more of your wonderful prompts 🙂 x
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Beautiful, Sherri! Delicately presented in your awesome words. M
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Well thank you so much Marty, I really appreciate your kind words 🙂
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Love it Sherri. What a wonderful world you made to escape into. Truly magical.
I love the way we can all help each other and this was given to me by M-R who couldn’t understand my lack of abilitly to add faces. There is such an array of them. Have fun with them. http://en.support.wordpress.com/smilies/
Cheers Irene
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Thanks so much Irene! I finally did it, only 3 weeks late…ha!! Thank you again for introducing me to Lisa! I had trouble too with not being able to comment etc. which didn’t help matters. Still, all seems to be better again now, thankfully. I hope with you and your mum too…
I’m so glad too and your help is invaluable, not for the first time I might add! Thanks so much, this is great, I will take a look. You’ll know when I’ve figured it all out, haha 🙂 Cheers my friend 🙂
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Mum is raring to come home. It is possible it is a problem with the pacemaker they put in last week but I’m having difficulty getting any information.
I’m looking forward to reading the compilation today. We all have such different memories and experiences.
XD
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Oh I ‘m so glad to hear this about your mum but how frustrating when you don’t get the information you need. I don’t know why ‘they’ can’t just let you know what’s going on…but hopefully your mum will come home soon!
Yes, I’m looking forward to it too…it’s great to share our memories like this! And thanks again for the link…I’m getting carried away left, right and centre now… ❤ 🙂 😛
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oh how wonderful
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Glad you enjoyed it, thanks so much TB… 🙂
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I love the fairies and the woods that you created. What a tranquil place that is.
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This was my world Imelda, the world where my imagination ran riot! So I was in my element writing about fairies! So glad you enjoyed the tranquility, many thanks 🙂
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Yours too? My fairies and pixies were all kind and good-natured. My grandmother introduced me to them…
I think we’re attracted to literature and stories that help us escape from our daily lives. When life is tumultuous, we want peace and goodwill; when life is predictable and humdrum, we crave adventure; when life is all peaches and cream, we crave the darker side.
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Yep! Yours too then? Oh Tracy, we shared the same fairies and pixies, how wonderful is that? I can honestly say that Enid Blyton introduced me to mine, from her wonderful books. I’m not sure if her books were well known in America or not but they were read by just about every child in the UK in the 50’s and 60’s. I took her stories and made them my own on my walks through the woods, which, even to this day, is where I feel the most at peace.
And yes, what a great insight you share about the kind of literature we are drawn to at different stages and times of our lives. My ‘fairy world’ was my escape into a world of tranquility, where I felt safe and calm, so different to the world I lived in where, for a time in my young life, there was no safety. I’ve got a lot to thank my fairies and pixies for, as it seems, so have you 🙂 Thank you for sharing this.
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I don’t know the Enid Blyton books. I received my fairies and pixies from stories my grandmother told me, about the bric-a-brac she had, and about the cuckoo clock and the family that lives in it and tended it.
Check your Facebook wall, I’m posting a picture there…
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Love it XD
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Sherri,
This is so so beautiful! What a lovely and moving peice, just love it so 🙂 🙂 Took me back to one of my favorite childhood books – Thumbalina . . . I really must find that book. . .
Your spirit is so bright and playful and brings so much joy!! Thank you for sharing your wonderful writing 🙂
Peace, always ~
Allison xo
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Oh Allison, yes, I’m so glad that you enjoyed this little ‘story’ and I loved Thumbalina too! That was my kind of ‘fairy story’, definitely! I didn’t like the ones about children getting hurt or threatened. I wanted to create a place where that didn’t happen, where no children get hurt.
How lovely of you to say…thank you so much…bright and playful..I like to think that is the girl inside who still likes to run and jump and giggle and be light and free and full of joy!
Peace and joy to too…have a beautiful day… 🙂 xo
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Funny, as a child I thought everyone believed in fairies and I often lost myself in fairy tales, even those of the ‘grim’ style. There was a pub where my parents used to stop at on the way home after a Sunday drive that had a fairy house in the back garden, whilst they enjoyed their drink, I would sit quietly and observe that little house, just in case a fairy came out.
You have a great ability to stir up memories Sherri. Thank you once again.
Jude xx
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Oh I love fairy houses! I can just imagine you doing that Jude, what a delightful story you tell yourself! I would have been there with you, doing just the same thing! I believed I saw a fairy once, skipping across the little brook which flowed through the wood…I really did!! Another ‘fairy story’ perhaps, but so glad you enjoyed this one. Thank YOU Jude 🙂 xx
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The sweet imaginations of youth. Hey wait a minute, fairies aren’t real? 🙂 Another lovely bit of writing which I thoroughly enjoyed! ❤
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Well….shhhh…don’t tell anyone Diane…of course they are… 🙂 You know how much I love fairies and always have…I have a darling tin you gave me with a fairy on it, I’ve had it all these long years and adore it even now…let’s keep those sweet imaginations alive my dear friend…and thank you so much 🙂 xoxo
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I’m just imagining the hedgehog listening with his pricked (prickled?) ears, Sherri 🙂 I love what you’ve done with 150 words.
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Haha! Yes, would it be prickled or pricked? Hmmm…still, remember the days when we would see them in the woods? I used to see them all the time…and red squirrels…*sigh*…but thank you so much Jo, really glad you enjoyed this little ‘fairy story’ 🙂
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Haha Sherri – another similarity between us – I had all those Flower Fairy books – I loved them! We definitely had fairies at the bottom of our garden. 🙂
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My youngest granddaughter LOVES Fairy books, but she is much more of a drama queen!
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🙂
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LOVE the Flower Fairy books…and yes, they do exist don’t they Jenny? 🙂
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Aw Sherri, this is pretty. Can you say that about a piece of writing..? Well, whatever – I am anyway 😉
I believed in fairies as a girl – benevolent fairies, of course, and not malevolent faeries (great difference). My mum always used to say that fairies are born through laughter, and that they like still, tranquil places, and she bought me a little fairy book that spoke of fairy secrets. I read it all the time. I used to sit at the bottom of the garden early in the morning while dewdrops still lingered – because that’s when the fairies were supposedly around the most – by the pond under the old apple tree, holding my breath, being so quiet, in hope to see one. And my mother used to say that those milkweed seeds were fairies, and that if you caught one and whispered a wish to it, then set it free, it would come true. And sometimes, we’d walk through the woods, and I’d ask what the acorn caps were on the ground, and my mother would say they were the fairies’ drinking cups, and I used to run about with them trying to find mushrooms rings to give the fairies their cups back.
Thank you for reminding me of such magic… My childhood is so bitter-sweet, but every memory I have out in nature – WITH nature – is beautiful and so precious. I needed this uplifting feeling today, so thank you again, Sherri. You have worked your Sherri Poppins magic! 🙂 Suddenly I recall so much from my childhood days in the woods, in the dunes, in the garden that I had, sadly, let slip from my mind…
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Oh Jenny Jen Jen, I smiled and almost cried when I read your beautiful words here! I used to imagine that acorn caps were soup bowls for fairies! And I did just the same with mushroom rings, everything you describe so exquisitely here! How wonderful that your mother gave you this magic. As with you, my childhood was bitter-sweet and so everything I remember that is good, like this, helps me remember the good in the darkness. In the tranquil world of fairies (and yes, not the nasty faeries).Oh goodness, to know my brolly worked some magic for you today, hurrah!! How wonderful that your memoirs have been sparked with something precious and wonderful! Think of these, and then smile…and smile some more… and remember all that is good and true 🙂
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Indeed. I am ever thankful for the magic my mother – and grandmother, actually – gave me as a child. We must hold on to the good!
Well of course your brolly worked some magic 😉 It keeps the rain away, dear Sherri 🙂
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So happy to hear this Jenny Jen Jen… ❤
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I love your vision of the fairy world, Sherri! Thumbalina was always my favorite. Great job! 🙂
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If only life could be like that Jill!! Thumbalina is wonderful isn’t it! Glad you enjoyed this little ‘bite size’, thank you! And…I wrote two chapters on my book today Jill…and I’m seeing it take shape and for the first time it’s hitting me…I’m writing a book!!! Hope you’ve had a good week… Friday tomorrow 🙂 xo
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Yay! I’m so happy for you, Sherri! We all can’t wait to read it!
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Ahh…Jill, your encouragement inspires me greatly…thanks so much… ❤
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What a beautiful memory of fairies and the recognition of natural wonders as magical.
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Hello Charli, thank you very much for visiting and for leaving such a lovely comment, I’m so glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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Hi again Charli, just to let you know that I commented on your blog about joining your flash fiction challenge. I know you filter your comments so not too concerned that it didn’t show up but I’ve been having problems with my comments going to spam, thanks to WP gremlins, and I just wanted you to know in case mine is hiding there. I hope to join in if not this week then the next. The thought of a 99 word flash fiction really stirs my creative juices, together with Lisa’s bite size memoir challenge. All great writing stuff!!! Thanks Charli 🙂
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What a beautiful ode to a magical world Sherri. My favourite fairy tale was always Beauty and the Beast, but I was always sorry when the Beast turned into a handsome prince! I was given a book of fairy tales when I was a child, called Dean’s Treasury of Fairy Tales – I loved looking at that book, because it had dozens of little fairy folk hidden in the bigger pictures.
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I love Beauty and the Beast and I know what you mean about the Beast…I preferred him how he was too!! You know, you have brought back a most wonderful memory for me Andrea, thanks so much, I adored my Dean’s Treasury of Fairy Tales, I loved the illustrations. I had forgotten about it and I can remember looking for the hidden fairy folk. Just wonderful… XD
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That’s so great that you had that book too! I’ve still got my copy and got it out recently thinking it wouldn’t be as magical as I remembered, but the illustrations were just as wonderful as I’d remembered !
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🙂 Have a great weekend Andrea, I’ll catch up with you soon.. 🙂
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That was bitesize, Sherri, and magical. I could picture the little girl’s innocent playfulness. Good job.
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So glad you enjoyed this ‘little piece’, thank you very much Pat! We are still those playful little girls aren’t we? XD
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Indeed we are, Sherri, playful and filled with imagination. Hope you have a great weekend, my friend. :-
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…and you too my dear friend… ❤
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Pingback: Magic and Fairy Tales Compilation | Lisa Reiter - Sharing the Story
Very touching Sherrie! Well written with a sweet rhythm 🙂
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Thank you dear Ilka, so glad you enjoyed this mini fairy tale 🙂
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So very well written story. Yes, very touching. Thank you for sharing it with us.
For some reason, you recently posts are not showing in my Reader 😕
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Thank you very much Amy, I’m so glad that you enjoyed it! I’ve been having problems, not being able to comment and not getting some notifications of other blog posts by email. I wonder why I’m not showing up in your Reader? Thanks for letting me know, I hope that all this gets sorted out soon … 🙂
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I have been running this problem with my Reader off and on. Don’t know where we can report to 😕
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I’m not sure Amy. I’ve tried looking on WP forums under support but not found anything about it. I’ll keep looking and if I find anything I’ll let you know… 🙂
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This is very good Sherri. Thanks for the reference to bite sized memoirs!
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You are very welcome Andy, and I thank you very much, really glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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What a wonderful 150-word mini-memoir, Sherri. From your first sentence–about fairies vs. fairy tales–you gave us a very real glimpse into a certain time in your life. Well done!
(Thanks for the link, too!)
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Great to hear this Marylin, thanks so much! It’s great being able to share in our memories like this isn’t it? XD
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A whimsical memory. I l.o.v.e. it. Makes me wish I might join in.
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Well you should dear Tess! I really enjoyed writing this mini fairy tale and looking forward to reading the others! Today a new prompt comes out, looking forward to seeing what it is… glad you enjoyed it, thank you! And lookie at what I can do now… ❤ XD 😎
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I have a sun-glasses one too. How do you do yours?
8 and – and ) is what I do.
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Yep…that’s the same 😛
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“When I walked alone in the woods, I breathed in the respite of their tranquil world as it eased the suffocation of my reality.” What a powerful line: strong and light at the same time, wow.
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What I love about sharing memories like this is that we bring up feelings from the past and can find ways to express them as they fit with certain prompts. In this case, I’m honoured that this particular sentiment meant what it did for you. Thank you so much Letizia for sharing this … 🙂
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Your writing is beautiful….even when it’s sad. But this is just so sweet. Too bad it’s only 150 words. I wanted more!
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Thanks Lyn, I really appreciate your support and encouragement of my writing, more than you know…Happy Memorial Day Weekend 🙂
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Really like your last paragraph, Sherri, as I also believe in liking and trusting the litltle girls (or boys) we once were.
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Thank you very much Evelyne, and yes, I love how you put that about ‘liking and trusting’ the children we once were. I hope you are enjoying a wonderful Memorial Day weekend 🙂
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It’s amazing what you can do with 150 words Sherri. It’s truly magical!
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Thank you so much Theresa…you always encourage me so much, it means a great deal to me. Happy Memorial Day Weekend my friend 🙂
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That is truly mesmerizing my friend. Believing in magic is both a blessing and a gift. It keeps that little child in all of us alive. The world has so many dark events that takes away our light and innocense but if we hang on to anything magical, we can easily overcome them. Wonderful story.
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Oh you are so right IT, we need to keep alive the children we once were and not lose our wonderment in the beauty of God’s creation which is all around us, if we just take the time to look and believe in the magic! Thank you so much, I’m greatly blessed that you enjoyed this little story…and I send blessings to you my friend, and a wonderful,joy-filled Memorial Day Weekend 🙂
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You make me jealous 🙂 I never believed in fairies. I don’t think Catholics are allowed to. I always wanted Narnia to exist though, sounded so much more fun than heaven.
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Ahh…well, I had to believe in something! Fairies were my escape. Narnia would be a wonderful place to escape to wouldn’t it…haha 🙂
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