The Storybook House

"Run, run, as fast as you can
you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man."



When my daughter was only about six months old her mother and I bought her a storybook house and matching pick-nick table. I had made plans to set the house up in a flower garden with a brush backdrop and white fence broken by an ivy-covered archway. Since Piper was so little then I figured the flowers in the garden had to be little too. Flowers like primroses, alyssums, and baby's breath would make up the majority of the garden and a taller wildflower mix would have added color to the brush backdrop. Just to the side of where the house sat I had dug a hole large enough to place a fifty-gallon drum half way into the ground. I covered the top half with topsoil and planted grass seed, moss, and ivy vines in it to cover the top portion of the barrel. The end result was something that resembled a small but mysterious "cave" that lead into the depths of the brush pile.

The location for all of this was in a pine and Chinese elm tree line that made up the wind block on the north side of our property. The pine kept things green all year round and the Chinese elms stood like sentinels on both sides of this secret little garden keeping just the right mix of light and shadow about the place.

Not too far form where the house sat hung the hammock where Piper and I had spent many hours just swinging back and forth while singing a song from The Lion King 1 ½. But the song always ended at "Snoozing in a hammock by a trickling stream…" at which point we would both look at the ground and start complaining that there was no stream!

Sounds like a daddy/daughter fairy tale world hu?

But this fairy tale never got a proper ending. I lost Piper before the project could be finished.

About a year ago Piper's storybook house was moved to my mothers property along with the matching pick-nick table. And until today it sat there looking like the abandoned dream that it was. I spent a good deal of time this afternoon picking up limbs and cutting down the weeds that had grown up around it. I cleaned the house inside and out, restacked the firewood that sets off to its side, fixed the high fence backdrop, fixed up the pick-nick table with a flower centerpiece, and cleaned the pond that was built just in front of the house. I found out that the pond is now a haven for a fair number of bullfrogs, the size of bullfrogs that could make a good attempt of eating one of my mother's dogs.

When the clean up was done and everything placed back into some semblance of order the dream that once went blurry was as clear as crystal, as if every element, including Piper, was right there waiting to turn from a dream to reality. Then my mind started racing trying to come up with ways to make a new garden with new secrets. I can almost see the new garden just as I did the first. With all the add-ins that would make this garden special to a very special little girl, even if she will never see it.

It's too late in the year for planting a new flower garden or spending too much time doing the set up. For all the physical stuff it is just the basics for now. But the mental and emotional stuff is quite another story. That's already complicated.

Just last week my sister came to me and hinted about getting the storybook house and moving it to her property for my nieces to play in. In hindsight I can see it as a reasonable request. The house was meant to be used and not setting in the backyard near a pond that makes it off limits to the little ones. The front door of the house only sets about 10 feet from the ponds edge, a bit too close for comfort when it comes to skipping toddlers.

I was a bit defensive of the storybook house when my sister hinted at the idea. Before she even finished what she wanted to say I told her that the house has to stay where it is with all the enchantments and warnings of the candy cottage. But a witch doesn't live in this house, just memories and fairytales that will never be written.

I was mused to write about the house this evening. Like a lot of other writings I had the title right there in the front of my mind like a large print sign on the side of the forest trail. The message of this work is a bit illusive to me. Kind of like the gingerbread man. Always head of me no matter how hard I try to put this all into perspective for all of you.

I think about the best I can do for you tonight is simply read what the sign there on the edge of the path says. There is a message on both sides. Walking towards the storybook house the sign reads "Welcome to Piper's Place."

And when leaving the house and walking away from everything that lives inside it the reverse reads "Welcome to the rest of the world."

One of these days…I'm going to paint over the backside of that sign.



Angel Snowden -2006