Y'ALL COME

* Kim's Fairy Door, which magically appeared in her living room wall last month

I love looking at the little Where are they from? Ticker on the right margin, for it shows the cities and towns and countries of visitors. Some are old faithful regulars, with some sort of index on their end, listing this as a “site” they can get to easily. Others, frequent visitors (though I suppose there could be more than one person from Vicksburg or Savannah or Tallahassee, but given the small number of site-seers every day, I doubt it) come and go, and I’m always glad to see their places pop up, and always wish they'd say Hello.

And others, with the little “G” beside their lines, have googled some question or item, and have happened in just by chance. It’s amazing how many people have dropped in just from seeking advice about “putting up corn” or "snap beans." Sometimes they give me a giggle, as in one on a subject I'd almost forgotten writing about---with a Google search of "What did Margaret Mead do dammit."

Today's search for “individual iced cakes”---most of the these searches either from the deep South, where we call them that, or from parts of Great Britain, where they supposedly might, and I just KNOW somebody's planning a LOVELY Tea Party. Preferably on a wide, shady lawn, with white wicker, lacy cloths, and smart waiters in gleaming white shirts and pomade-slicked hair, lifting high a tray of these:

Stevens Cakes---internet

But the all-time winner in the Google lottery has always been “Hoop Cheese.” Something about the odd name, or the history, or mere curiosity, or the rarity in some sections of the world---I don’t know what it is, but it sometimes springs up five or six times a day, in searches for news of the Golden Commodity.

And in the past few months, since I posted about Fairy Doors, the pages have gone positively wild some days, with fifteen or twenty whizzing down the page, looking for the magical portals. It’s just delightful to know that the sense of happy belief, the child-like acceptance of the wee creatures and their world, is alive and well, and finding information and welcome right here in these pages.

Whether they buy their own, with some of the links to purveyors, or travel to other sites which illustrate so many of the shapes and sizes and locations, or have one magically appear just because they WISH it so, or just revel in the CUTE of the whole thing---makes no difference.

For a moment, they have come into a magical place, the charming, innocent locales of childhood fantasy and belief, and for that time, we’re all children once again. And if any word I've said, any memory or thought or picture I've posted, has caused someone to seek out this wonderful place, it makes me very happy.

In this world, now and again we all NEED to step through those tiny doors and those tee-ninecy gates into the realms where everything is possible and everything is kissed with the dust of Magic.

We NEED it.