Penolin,

Enclosed, please find a carbon copy of a tale i told to my friend wendy:

once upon a time there was a girl whose eyes shone bright and wide at all that was beautiful in the world. and in those eyes you could see all the wonder and magic that was in that world. and the girl who had such eyes of insight wished more than anything to keep filling her eyes, because it made her eyes happy. And her eyes would not let her rest. They kept her awake at night, filling her mind with dreams of silk ribbons, and soft cable sweaters and delicious treats and strange things like dragon fruit and more mysterious things like kumquats and cinnamon.... and her eyes were contagious to her hands and her ears and her mind- and soon they were touching curious things like silkfloss trees and meditating on words like supercilious, sonorous and spendthrift and saying things like frippery and windwhistle and whirlygig and whowizzle.

and soon her whole being wanted to get up and go to keep seeing, touching, tasting and saying everything, and keep thinking the things with the longtrains of thought or the ones that you blinked and were gone. sometimes those tasted the best...because the world was better when these things were done and they were good and sweet and possibly rose flavored when said aloud. and yet the eyes urged her to look upward and outward, further and further and she knew her journey lay up beyond the mountains, to strange places, to unfamiliar things, where the girl with the wry smile and mischievious glance would see what it would it be like to be alone amidst all these things. and she knew she wanted more than anything to go alone. but there were many things to do before she was with her bicylce, bonnet and basket- sailing past tulips, dark shaded forests, and melancholy falls with her loaf of bread, butter and jam and possibly tea, a journal and her many colored pencils.

so many things to be done that the girl with the eyes of insight lay stuck for a while as the stars shone and the inconstant moon shrunk and sighed back to life again... over and over. when would the time come asked the mind to the more impatient eyes? and all the friends of the girl wished gifts upon her to soar, to roam, to build some ship in which to stay afloat, but to keep journeying upward and outward far over the mountains, into the sky, across the continent. they loved the girl so much that even people who did not know the girl came to love her anyway and call her friend, and they too began to wish the girl goodness and blessings and etsy accounts. because they saw those blazing insightful eyes and the truth of all the need and want those eyes seemed to speak- words like jelly, joy and juju and more serious words like god, transcendent and zeitgiest. they wanted the best for her. and her eyes did too. and the girl stood ready to claim them, but the waiting was hard and sometimes her eyes closed and darkness came, and sometimes the girl was very sad, and very lonely and yet still the mind and the hands and the mouth all rallied when the eyes got tired. they came to the rescue with an aching that made the girl look up into the sky and dream dreams and sing songs. waiting for her eyes to open again and begin to crave and wonder and search all over again.

and her friends with all their eyes could see and dream dreams and wonder with the girl about all that was good and about all that was bad and the girl gave them a wink and a nod and a sometimes smile and the friends began to notice things too-- snowflakes, and fava beans and cider donuts, and they began to say words like, cellar, sensuous, and wonderment, and meditate on words like, delight, melody and holindaese. and the girl with the eyes of insight stood sometimes sleepy, sometimes wide awake. they were all waiting. the eyes, the ears, the mouth and the hands and the mind especially and all the girl had in her heart, to soar upward and outward and she knew because they told her, that her friends would be there when she got back, they would be there waiting for gifts and cheesy souviners and postcards... waiting for the girl to come back and tell them all the places she'd been and all the thoughts she thought and the strange and the curious and the novel and especially how alive the girl was and to see how those eyes shone gratified and content.

and the girl knew she was more than the waiting. more than the cut on her finger and the dust on her feet. more than just the stains on her sweater, or the insulting lack of good tv- she was this radiant spirit and how brilliant she sparkled against the light of the evening sun. and she rested there a while and felt for a moment- infinite- and with all of those things to go forward and know she was not just for a moment, infinite, but forever.