Under an aquarian sun, after a harsh winter of discontent as I was mourning the loss of my beloved Penny cat, a kindred spirit came to my rescue. My friend Katherine Peach, whom I had met only once about six years go at a fairy festival drove down into the city in her pickup truck blasting 1960's forest folk music and took me on an adventure.
I was planning to spend all day bed rotting, when I got the message. "Good morning! I'll drive down to your place and pick you up." So I got out of bed and started humming a song to myself. The same song I had made my fiddling fiend of an ex-boyfriend learn to play on violin at the fairy festival all those years ago...a british folk ballad dating back to the 1600's 'Matty Groves'.
"A holiday, a holiday, the first one of the year..."
I started thinking of the day we met at that fairy festival at the Church of the Guardian Angel. We were both there as vendors. I was selling my handmade jewelry and she set up shop as a tie-dyed t-shirt seller. We bought each other's wares, a purple and green tee for me, and a wooden leaf necklace for she! I didn't remember much more from that day but we ended up being friends on Facebook. As my mind wandered back to the present moment, I brushed the tangles out of my hair and put on a green floral mini skirt, brown paisley pattern shirt and thigh high green pleather boots. I wore my lucky clover emerald ring that my boyfriend Tom got me last year and a tiger's eye necklace for courage. The courage to carry on, to get up and live and not suffer from social anxiety. When we met up, Kat remarked that I was dressed up too nicely.
"I'd rather a kiss from dead Penny's lips than you in your finery..."
We hit the road and decided to get out of the city and go whenever the wind took us. As we chatted and got caught up on things, I mentioned that my boyfriend and I were house hunting for a place in the woods and that he is really into rubber stamps. "What's your boyfriend's name again, Tom Brown?" she asked. It's a common british name. "Where does he work?" "Amazon," I replied.
"By the clover ring on your finger I can tell that you're Lord Thomas' wife.. But if I am, Lord Thomas is not home. For he is out in the far warehouse, bringing the shipments home"
I told Kat about a house we were interested in, a real fixer upper of an old green house in Havre De Grace on Robinhood Road. "I saw that listing too!" she said "Let's go look at it, we can go antiquing up there" So we made out way out there and had lunch at the Vintage Cafe, then went to Washington Street Books & Music, JoRetro, Zodiac Records and Seneca Cannery Antiques. We magically manifested many things. I had mentioned how I found two Royal Doulton Brambly Hedge plates while thrifting last summer. The collection had four plates, one for each season. I owned Summer and Winter, but really wanted Autumn. I told her and she said "We'll just have to find them for you." A few minutes later we went upstairs and would you believe we found the Autumn plate, all by itself without any of the others!
We left the town and headed towards Robinhood Road. Tom's parents had already taken a look at it for us and said it was no good, and a dead raccoon in the driveway for good measure. When we arrived, we took a long look around the property. There was a wooden object in the dirt Kat pointed out. "Is that a stamp?" she asked. "No," I said "It looks like a wine cork" It was a rubber stamp of a paw 🐾 print. "It's a sign!"
"A grave, a grave Lady Ariel cried to put these critters in. But bury my Penny at the top, for she was of noble kin..."
