Fairies are Real:Wear Purple Now! How I Found Joy and Learned to Play at a Funeral

My trip to Colorado for my Uncle Paul’s memorial service was wonderful.  Weird thing to post, but you see, he leaves such a mark on our family it is almost...almost as if he isn’t really gone.  My family that remains, well we are all so marvelous only good can come of it, even amidst tears.  Plus I was kidfree for five days.  Yes Ma’am. Big thanks to my Hubby and friends and family for that. 

BROTHERS: Dad, Paul, Johnny and Charlie

Uncle Paul's Memorial service was at Blue Lake Ranch Bed and Breakfast in Durango, Colorado and was as beautiful as any wedding.  We also enjoyed Cousin Ericka’s wedding there, it is an incredible place, they loved Paul, and our family in turn.  Go there at your first opportunity.  We might have drunk some beer and played music and told stories and loved on each other really well.  Our Crazy Curlee family, it makes me feel so alive and reminds me of my best self.  Uncle Paul would have been tickled all over with the turn out, the remeberences and the Real Life Fairy.

The Fairy?  

Do tell, you say?

Cousins Portia & Ericka with Paula the Fairy

I passed a slim woman with glittery hair and sparkles around her eyes and I thought to myself, “Who’s the FAIRY?”  When I got a chance to get back to her, I asked what her story was.  I told her I was fascinated by her appearance and she said “I’m a real life fairy!”  Her name was Paula and I adored her.  She is actually a family practice doctor, married to a hunky guy and has two handsome young sons.  She was friends with Paul and my cousins.  Turns out she dresses up every day and for special events she might even change her outfit a few times.  I asked to take her picture for my little girls I missed back home and she obliged, lamenting her fairy wings which were in the car.

People, this woman is PLAYING!  PLAYING as an adult.  She is pleasing herself and in turn pleasing the rest of us.  

Hard to see the sparkles but they are there!

Or making folks who do not just ask her about her glitz think she might be a bit looney.  She is wearing purple only at a younger age and I was inspired.  

I don’t wear my sparkly eye shadow as much because I am worried it looks silly.  Paula the Fairy had sparkles on her face, little gems around her eyes affixed with eyelash glue...and she had rainbow silk threads in her hair.  Mine should arrive today.  Yup.  Why not?  I do not have anything to prove and I like who I am.  The parts I do not care for are always in progress. I’m going to have some fun with myself.  I cannot pull off full on Fairy, with me that wouldn’t work...but I will add some sparkle.

Sparkle on, Paula, Live on, Uncle Paul.  I’m going out to play.

Curlee Family (minus some cousin spouses & Uncle Paul)

Warning (By Jenny Joseph)

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.