About the blog title...

So, a favorite fairy tale of mine is East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Lately, I've been into the idea of this unreachable land that, once rid of the evil trolls ruling it, is sort of this light at the end of the tunnel. A place you've always dreamed of that, once you've overcome all your struggles, waits for you somewhere down the line. Maybe it's just me and my dreams of something better than what I'm living now or my undying hope that this depression I've been in is merely an obstacle I'll be able to defeat someday, I don't know. My point is this: I see this land East of the Sun and West of the Moon from this epic Norwegian fairy tale as a symbol of someone, anyone really, moving past what troubles them to get to the wonderful thing they want more than anything else. It means more to me than I can really express in a blog post on the Internet.

Having created this blog, I wanted to give it a name that reflected my own love of fairy tales and the fantastical. Something that would also stand as a testament to where I am in life right now. I went through a couple different potential titles at first, those being "The Tales of Lyrical Wisteria" and "Lyrical Prestidigitation". When all was said and done, though, I kept coming back to East of the Sun and West of the Moon. It was inevitable that I'd end up incorporating that into the title. Of course, I was going to have to shorten that story title and work it into some sort of creative name. How does someone like me pick between the sun and the moon, though? I am utterly besotted with both for the beauty that they offer. Ultimately, the moon won out because the night is when I feel most alive and most creative. At times I feel like I'm a whole other person at night. For a blog that features my writing, what could be more fitting? Thus, "West of the Moon" became "West of the Silver Crescent", this platform upon which I am writing in the late hours of this fine evening for the day after Christmas. The rest, as they say, (well, "they" say it and I modified it. Whatever.) is digitally encrypted history, the likes of which we'll discover may or may not have been a huge mistake. We shall see.

On a closing note, this is technically my first blog post. The one I posted before is a prose poem I wrote, not really a "blog" post. I've never done this whole blogging thing before, so this actually feels pretty cool. All my previous points having been addressed, I welcome you to my blog and I hope you'll find something to like about it. Sayonara and good night, readers.

-Debbie

Prelude to a Fairy Tale

Prelude to a Fairy Tale

I wish I could follow the four winds, letting the gusts carry me to the land East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Ravens, swans, and white horses could lead the way, their forms a beacon to that palace of gold that waits atop the horizon. When I get there, I could cast off my red shoes for slippers of glass, my feet twirling past midnight into gilded dreams and happy endings. Beanstalks could topple, towers of green felled by the sweep of an axe, and ells of  golden hair could be severed, but still the magic wouldn’t fade so long as I kept dancing toward an ever after.

For now I lay in a coffin of gleaming glass, caught in a spell that cannot be broken. A ruby apple full of poison lies beside me, one bite missing from its crimson surface. I wait in a tower in the clouds, combing my miles of hair by an open window waiting for a sign. My true love remains in enchanted stasis, unable to see me or know me for what I am to him. The fairies may bestow their enchantments and magic could hide out in the open, but for now things linger at a standstill until the witch’s curse comes to an end. The storybook is open, but the end of the story is obscured behind endless reams of paper. “And they lived happily ever after” is an uncertainty among these fantastical icons of Once Upon a Times and fairy tales that transcend the passage of years. There’s only so many instances one can be stolen away by the Snow Queen and lured astray by the promise of something greater before they begin to think that it’s all only that, a fairy tale. Jorinda doesn’t return to maiden form. The Beast remains a beast and Beauty doesn’t learn to love what lies beneath the surface. Towers stand untouched. The prince marries the wrong maiden while the mermaid dissolves into sea foam. Live in a fantasy world long enough and reality appears coarser when it returns to spirit you away back to the castle of ice and snow at the ends of the earth.

There’s only the hope to get you to keep dreaming, the promise of the storybook yielding treasure untold when the trials have been faced and the quests followed through. After all, maybe the struggles were just a test devised to assess the strength of your will. Surrounded by a world filled to the brim with enchantment and beauty among the tribulations, you can’t help but hold fast to the idea of a fanciful conclusion written in cursive script. “The End” can be interpreted so many different ways and lead to a thousand possible outcomes if you can get that far. Until then, slay the dragons that torment uncharted kingdoms. Journey over the miles to that land unreachable. Let your heart never stray from what it is you want most in life. In time, the fearsome trolls that reign will be vanquished. The land East of the Sun and West of the Moon will always be there, an ideal to chase away your darkest struggles when the sun has set to suppress the light.