“life isn’t always a fairytale.”

Me and Jos all decked out at church as girls.

I posted a quote from Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” this morning on Facebook. It led to a long string of back and forths on a literature and movies and criticism. In the middle of this, I wrote:

life isn’t always a fairytale. unless it’s one of those scary Brothers Grimm originals…

That got me thinking about how me and Joscelyne use to love when Anita Baker’s “Fairy Tales” would come on CD 101.9 when we were little. Our chatter would stop. We’d listen intently. We, only elementary school age, were enveloped by not just Anita’s lovely and distinct vocals, but by the actual lyrics.

I can remember stories, those things my mother said
She told me fairy tales, before I went to bed
She spoke of happy endings, then tucked me in real tight
She turned my night light on, and kissed my face good night
My mind would fill with visions, of perfect paradise
She told me everything, she said he’d be so nice
He’d ride up on his horse and, take me away one night
I’d be so happy with him, we’d ride clean out of sight
She never said that we would, curse, cry and scream and lie
She never said that maybe, someday he’d say goodbye

The story ends, as stories do
Reality steps into view

We were strange little girls. Loving Disney, but not buying it. Not for us, anyway. We use to gawk at old glossy photos of Dorothy Dandridge and Marilyn Monroe, amazed as much by their beauty as by the ugliness that consumed them both.

Both would ultimately be found dead, alone. From pills.

Accident, maybe, maybe not. Unknown, undetermined. Much like my sister.

You never came to save me, you let me stand alone
Out in the wilderness, alone in the cold
I found no magic postion, no horse with wings to fly
I found the poison apple, my destiny to die
No royal kiss could save me, no magic spell to spin
My fantasy is over, my life must now begin

Or, sometimes, lives- too suddenly- end.