Simply Me

Several years ago, as part of my therapy, a psychologist asked me who I am… The answer came in the form of a poem, which,  over the next session, only made the therapist ask me to be more concise and to not overthink the matter, response that still makes me laugh… Now, I deeply believe that this poem answers the question beautifully, especially because the instruction was to not say I’m a writer because that’s my “profession”, or a woman because that’s my “gender”, or that I am “daughter of” someone, or that I’m “a dreamer”, or that “I like this or that”…  I added all of that and more, because forming these verses allowed me to express that I accept me as I am, and provided me with more healing than many months of therapy.

I had originally published it in this blog back in 2014, in its original Spanish form, but I translated it upon settling in Glastonbury. There is no real reason as to why I hadn’t published it, but today seems the perfect day for doing so, as it yesterday (Saturday January 12th) was my birthday, and I spent it modelling for a charity event for the benefit of Children’s World! At the end of the poem you’ll find a picture of me on the catwalk, embodying the Goddess Arianrhod by the aid of the extremely talented and lovely Robyn Jean. The photo was taken by my husband, actor and playwright Stephen Cole. Even nearly nine years old, the poem contains my heart in it. I hope you enjoy it.

Who am I?

After days and days of mulling over this question, these words started flowing uncontrollably last minute. (Monday 6^th July, 2010).

I am a singing voice,

I am illusion and hope.

I am thought, laughter and fun.

I am my breasts, my face and my hair,

                my hips, my arms and my legs.

I’m the sea and I’m the Sierra,

I’m the proud gaze from the mirror,

I am song, poem and novel,

I am light, I am shadow, and I’m the passing cloud.

I am dawn, twilight, and everything in-between.

I am talent, I am friend and I’m a teacher,

                though I don’t yet know what classes I impart.

I’m a bird, a cat, a doe in the serene forest of peace.

I am colour, I am love,

but I’m never, never pain or woe.

I am a girl, a woman, a Goddess,

                and will be old some day, ahead,

                yet I choose to keep my joy and youth.

I am daughter, sister,

                cousin, niece, granddaughter,

maybe future mother of a precious being,

wife (let’s hope) I shall be when I decide it so.

I’m the starry mantle that covers the Earth,

I’m the Moon, I’m Venus, I’m the Sun.

I’m finesse, tenderness and romance,

I’m the wind, the rain, the golden flame and the earth under my feet.

I’m my voice, my dreams and my own reason,

I’m a passionate kiss and the soft caress of my fingertips.

I am gold and I am silver,

I’m a diamond, a ruby and an emerald,

                I’m the healing chrystal and a thousand polished stones.

I’m a whisper, booming laughter,

                a drum, a violin and a guitar.

I’m contradiction, January and August,

                I’m health, freedom and understanding,

                and I’m also the shining light of my intuition.

No matter how many changes I undergo,

                I am always, always, always me.

I am, nothing more and nothing less,

This woman that I always am.

Sandra Tena Cole ~ Actress, Model, Writer, Esoteric Explorer, Dreamer, Weaver

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What You Will this Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night... The real Christmas for some, a night of fun and frolic presided over by the Lord of Misrule by others... January 5th for some, the 6th of this month for others... For those distracted souls that every once in a while we come across, sometimes January 12th, or even December 24th!

No...? No one else has ever been confused like this...? Wait... Was that just me then?
Oh rats...!

Fine, let me explain...!

For the longest time, I thought Twelfth Night was celebrated on my birthday, January 12th, and that it had nothing to do with Christmas, but that it celebrated, for some rare and obscure reason, the 12th night of the New Year! I took it upon myself to research what great symbolism the number 12 had, and oh, my, the phenomenal things I came across! It seems like every numerology practitioner out there has a different view of what numbers represent! Or at least they did, back in 1997 - I might do a proper entry about my interest in numerology further on, but for now I will focus on my teenage discoveries that led me to understand myself a bit better!

Well, let me also explain that in Mexico we don't celebrate Twelfth Night as such, but Epiphany rather. I'm not sufficiently versed in Catholic Mexican traditions to explain in what ways this is celebrated (yet from living in the UK for 6 years I can tell that it's not that different from the few bits I do know), but what it meant to me and my sister was chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate as a kid, and later on when I was a "grown up" a substantial amount of money to get myself some nice post-Christnas deals consisting of books, jewelry, movies, CDs, clothes, shoes and of course, chocolate.

Now, I was happy enough to know that for some, January 5th was the real night in which Jesus had been born; even at 10 or 11 years of age I understood that a Roman Emperor had changed the calendar, and then another one had changed it again, and that somewhere down the line another one had added his own name to it (making another one jealous and wanting his own name in it), and I reacted to that the very same way that I do now: I shrug my shoulders and acknowledge that the amount of days in the year are the same and that a lot of those dates are symbolic anyway, and that those that rely on the Sun or Moon, such as the Solstices and Equinoxes, as well as Easter, Ramadan and Chanukah are set by the Sun and the Moon each year anyway...  To me, there is no point in fighting over a date if December 25th means the same today as January 5th meant centuries ago, and all the symbolism is safeguarded by the old poems, legends and songs anyway.

I've already written my points of view of this before, so I'm getting back to Twelfth Night!

I was 11 years old when I first associated Twelfth Night with Christmas, as I heard a little ditty called The Twelve Days of Christmas at a neighborhood social - we were living at a University of Michigan campus flat at the time - and I was completely surprised to learn that it didn't have anything to do with my birthday after all! It had nothing to do with the New Year, but rather with the countdown to Christmas!

Now, that made cultural sense to me, because in Mexico people celebrate Christmas by holding a series of the famous (or infamous, depending on whether or not you like tamales) Posadas, which consist of mini Pastorelas (mini-pantomimes) telling the story of the trek the shepherds took to visit the newborn Baby Jesus, carols telling the story of Mary and Joseph seeking shelter, piñatas and mulled stuff. So of course to me that meant that it began on December 12th and carried on to the night in which Jesus was born! I carried on with that belief for another 5 years or so, which is one of the reasons that I started exploring numerology and what different numbers mean to me.

I was 16 at the time I learned about Twelfth Night being a play by Shakespeare (probably would have learned that way earlier if I had listened to my sister more carefully when talking about Shakespeare!), and I also learned about Viola and what it meant for her to crossdress. Around that time Mulan came out, and I began to see myself in a different way. I have already spoken a little bit about my sexual identity and the different issues that unravelled my personality in older entries, so I won't get into that just now, but I will say this: it was when I was 17, having started a path of spiritual growth, having been diagnosed with depression and being sidelined for many reasons (several already spoken of, most very much worth exploring in further entries), that I realised that my mind had always been ruled by the Lord of Misrule! That simple mistake about cultural symbolism and traditions, and the years of seeking understanding (unaided by ADD, taken off the path several times by a rough case of hyperimagination), got me to a place where I could fully understand who I was, and where I wanted to be... So, technically speaking, the Lord of Misrule guided me to a better understanding of myself!

Shakespeare's play is subtitled "What you will", which has such a beautiful psychological and spiritual connotation - traditionally, on Twelfth Night you could be whatever you wanted: fools became kings and kings were outed as fools; but also, lets remember that traditionally, the Fool or Court Jester was the only one who was allowed to speak the truth to the king, mostly about the king's shortcomings! The Fool is often known as the Wise Old Fool, and mistakes are often followed by learning and growth! Often, I say, although I will refrain to say how often...

And now for the extra twist: in the spiritual path I follow we have but one rule: An it harm none, do what you will! It is of course technically imposible to make sure that absolutely no one ever gets hurt from our actions, and I've had far too many discussions about this subject with people who express "Oh, but if you take your dream job someone else will end up whitout a job and so they will be hurt!" and such things...Oh, people...! I believe I wrote a very lengthy entry about this, Utopia, ages ago, but might enjoy exploring it further in the future! Anyhow, what the final words of the Wiccan Rede mean is that as long as you live a life where you're not actively trying to harm others with what you do, you should be free to do what you wish to - and considering that that is precisely what many of the great Masters have taught all throughout history, I think there might be some truth in those words! We don't need the cover of Twelfth Night anymore to be whatever we want to be: we can go for it and try our best, knowing that there's no reason for others to be harmed along the way...
I think there are enough clues hidden in this entry regarding everything I will be writing throughout the year, so I'll leave it here for now...
Now, unfortunately, due to the consequences of past incorrect decisions made by yours truly, I have not been able to start my year with posting my brand new entry on a Saturday as I'd actively planned... Wait, isn't Saturn a Lord of Misrule as well...? Ohhhh, now I get it...!

Have a blessed Twelfth Night, everyone,

Sandra Cole ~ Actress, Model, Writer, Dreamer!

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Mental Health Awareness DAYS

On Thursday I went to see "Over the Wall Picking Apples", a one man play written and performed by Richard Crowe, whom I've been very lucky to have shared the stage with during the very first Wells Theatre Festival earlier this year.

Now, Thursday also happened to be Mental Health awareness day, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been able to see Richard's courageously autobiographical play on that day - both as a way to respectfully mark it and to provide me with the courage to speak even more openly about my mental health issues.

Over the Wall Picking Apples is the most poignant and beautiful take on mental health that I've ever seen on stage - deep, raw and humorous, and oh so greatly inspiring! Richard opted for full disclosure and the response has been respect, resonance and the spread of awareness as each audience member walks out with a smile on their lips and a tear in their eye. Richard's performance in itself is strong and engaging (no surprise for me there, after his powerful performance as Lord Capulet in Romeo & Juliet, for the aforementioned WTF); Ged Stephenson's direction certainly brought out the best of Richard's talents, and Kasha Miller's design of the production is compelling indeed!

Richard's main objective with this project was to educate his audience regarding bipolar disorder and mental health in general, as well as the experience of the thwarted concept of social norms regarding masculinity and how this affects mental health - and Richard achieved this brilliantly!

As Richard finished the evening with a Q&A, numerous questions came up, including how Richard dealt with the consequences of opening up to his wife and children. I can understand that to be a tantalising idea for most people, and I loved Richard's answer about the importance of being open, honest and sensible. Communication, communication, communication! That was the main message in his answers to most of the questions - and in the play itself, in its own way! My question was about how to deal with the consequences of being open with your parents... To me, there is something intrinsically terrifying in letting your parents know that something traumatic happened to you and that they can't do anything about it now. I can feel their pain and impotence and it shatters my heart just to think about them suffering with that. You see, they already know about my mental health condition, but they don't know the reason for my PTSD. I needed to know what Richard thought, and asked for his advice. Wisely enough, he replied he doesn't do advice - he is after all not an expert - yet he remarked again on the same message of Communication! Communication! Communication!

I relaxed into my question. I had just watched a grown man explore his full life in front of a room full of avid listeners. I cried for several minutes after the show was over because of how much I could relate to his experience. At that moment, in that room, there were no boundaries between age, gender or nationalities, even though his experience came from the lacks of communication in masculinity and mine from the external dissatisfaction with my femininity. His experience came from a Britain in the process of reconstruction while mine came from a Mexico with a lack of understanding mental health conditions. His experience included a wife and grown children while mine has a newly-found husband after years of being single and parents who are only now feeling comfortable with how well I'm doing.
(Disclaimer: I went from bad to worse over the course of about 8 years and my family were rightfully worried about whether I'd be able to make it to where I am or not. I would not be here now without their support!)

Anyway, at that moment I felt grateful that there are people in the world like Richard, who can explore this openly and inform and inspire people through their work. I have an incomplete book which I started when I was 11, and a blog entry that I wrote 2 weeks ago, and a series of unfinished entries, chapters and notes in-between which I plan to bring out one day and post and publish and preferably finish first! Some will come out in the form of fiction or poems, but all will hopefully continue the thread of Communication! Communication! Communication! that people like Richard have bravely started...

... and some have already been put out there by me, of course, in the many pages of this blog and in my already published books, but the journey of healing and growth compels me to bring out even more from the depths of my soul.
I just hope I can inspire people just as much!

See you next week!
Sandra Cole ~ Actress, Model, Writer, Esoteric Explorer and Happy Bookworm

In the picture, me (in the pink top) with my lovely and supportive family on my dad's 60th birthday, the year before I moved to England. Bless them all <3

My Amazon Author Page:
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Communication

Communication,

What a funny little thing
Communication,
Gets me frazzled instantly...

Words, sentences, poems and jokes,
Misunderstandings, triggers, childhood memories and treats;
Dendrites extending to corroborate,
To pass a message that transcends time,
That will leave a mark wherever it falls:
Once said cannot be unsaid,
So make sure you've first had a deep conversation with yourself!

Communication,
What a base necessity,
Communication,
Ha, try living without it and see how life is!

Words, languages, frontiers and individuality,
Invocations, cantares, more poems and dreams!
Musical notes telling a story,
Touch and gestures that will mark one another with intention of without,
As we constantly need to reassure our selves,
Making sure our message makes sense inside and out!

Communication!
What a tidy little word,
Communication,
The one thing that connects the whole world!

Words, families, partners and friends,
Songs that we heard all our lives and with a horrid shock suddenly understand,
Stories from cultures, generations and journeys abroad,
Of conquest, understanding, liberation and growth,
Magicians, Word Weavers, Great Masters and Bards,
As the Priestess sings and wakes up a star,
The power of Words will live after we all die.

Communication,
Charts, more poems, stories and songs,
Communication as our world gets recorded forever more,
The healing of music, touch, gestures and - words!
Fall in love with a song and tell your story and communicate through lore...

More poems?
Why not!
Communication lets us all flow,
Grow,
Know...
Communication is like... Snow?

Sandra Tena Cole ~ Actress, Model, Writer, Esoteric Explorer & Happy Bookworm

Photo: the author as the Element of Air for the first Samhain Wild Hunt - Glastonbury Dragons Celebrations 2016.

My Amazon Author Page:
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The return of that Voice in my Head

Today marks exactly 4 years since I met my wonderful husband Stephen, so what better way to celebrate than to joyfully bring back my blog!
Bring it back from where, I hear you ask? Well, lovely readers, truth be told, I simply don't know! The curious and ridiculous insatiable void that is The Internet took it away some time ago without any warning or explanation, and then brought it back to me a couple of weeks ago, again without warning or explanation!
So, as I said - best time to revise, or if I may be so bold, regenerate, That Voice in my Head! Four years ago, to the day, I danced around a Dalek at the bottom of Glastonbury Tor and my now husband came out of thin air to announce himself to Glastonbury, and we both fell head over heels for each other.
There was no other option - we were meant to be together, we fit like jigsaw pieces that had been put into the wrong boxes and had finally found their set in the right Blue Box.
The context is, of course, we were both playing the Doctor in a fan series of Doctor Who, produced by our amazingly talented and magical friend Mani Navasothi, who we'll see tomorrow in London to celebrate the Equinox with our tribe - and you can feel free to read the rest of my blog to understand more of the context of all of this I'm relating now.
The next day was what I fondly like to call my second birthday. I was naked in the White Spring and absolutely everything in the world suddenly made sense. That was a key moment in the fan series which, spoilers! by the way...
There is a lot to be written here regarding healing, synchronicity, and creative outlets, some of which I've already described in previous entries, some of which I'll continue writing about as the years give me opportunities to explore these subjects - but one thing is certain: this is a time for renewal in my life! Old things that are not needed any more get recycled or tossed away, new things that I've desired come in or grow from creative projects and careful planning, and things which were taken away come back if they were really mine to have, sometimes in a slightly different shape, sometimes the same but better...
So tonight I've celebrated four years of life with this magical, handsome, creative oddball that is my husband, but guess what? I'm also celebrating the WHOLE life that came with him! From creative collaborations with some of the most fantastic people that I have ever had the honour of working with; magical growth in our personal healing and path with the Craft alongside so many really wise and powerful people we have connected with in this community; years of community celebrations at the Assembly Rooms and in the glorious land around Glastonbury and the Tor, honing our skills by joining forces with great ceremonialists and creative people all around; and last but never ever least, finding a wonderful way to connect and reconnect with our extended (and extensive!) family all around the world - including friends who have always been like family to each of us!
So, today I want to celebrate this Life I gained four years ago! This blessed, wonderful life and everything and everyone I love who is part of this life I love!
And before I start sounding like a tongue-twister (one of my many great skills!) I leave you happy readers and bid you all a wonderful weekend ahead.

Sandra Tena Cole ~ Actress, Model, Author, Esoteric Explorer and more

Fairytales: what about the wrongful life-examples?

Yes, those very same that you might have been asking about last week when I defended happy endings… What about the girl who’s seen as a beauty only after her fairy-godmother gives her a magic make-over? What about the girl who changes herself for the man she fancies and even gives up her power of speech to have a shot with him? What about the girl who loves a man even though he is dark and violent as a beast? What about, in short, all the times when we’ve all been told that if we’re not looking pretty and laughing all the time we won’t be loved in return?

Sigh, oh, sigh, we’ve all been given a very wrongful example to follow in that sense! That doesn’t mean that all of those stories are wrong in themselves, but they’re nevertheless erroneous for contemporary psychology and our new understanding of human relations and self-love. The messages of virtue, patience and resignation that might have been important at the time those stories were originally written have taken a new shape in today’s world of speedy races towards success and multiple definitions of feminism.  Everyone uses phrases such as that there is no magic cure or magic shortcut to obtain something, that we should love ourselves as we are, and that yes, patience is a virtue, but that’s rather more associated with Zen than with accepting the abuse of others. Keeping quiet so that we don’t look stupid is not very well seen, either, since most people claim for free speech and prefer to speak up and show their opinion to the world (whether they’re intelligent or not, that’s another matter, but that’s not the point.  Although I do not think that because Ariel didn’t know the difference between a comb and a fork that meant she was stupid – she was only misinformed).

Taking all of that into account, of course there is such a great anti-princesses movement going on in the world! I admit, out of all those classic stories, the only one that I utterly dislike is Cinderella.  I don’t dislike it for the thing about the use of magic to solve her problems (I want that part to be real!), but rather because her problem was “not looking pretty”. That and because there was no inner-change made within either her or the prince; it was just “Oh, I show up, looking prettier than everyone else, not because of my natural beauty but because of my magic dress and accessories, you fall in love with me and so you look for me around the kingdom, yay!” – Wait, I can hear you say “The other princesses are also pretty, so?” (ahem, drum roll, please).

In every other case, even the dreaded Disney versions, every one of the girls have shown their natural beauty in one way or another: Snow White and Aurora (Thalia for some) were seen as country girls by the wandering princes, Belle was kept in the Beast’s castle and thus never really dressed up that much (and by the time of the ball they were already in love with one another), Ariel was found floundering about (pun intended) in a sailcloth for God’s and the Goddess’ sakes, and even Jasmine was walking about dressed as a townswoman. I know I’m missing plenty of Disney examples, but I don’t want the list to go too long, and I don’t want to stick to the Disney versions, either. I will say, though, that I believe this particular detail should be taken as a very encouraging one, because it shows that being natural is an important factor in falling in love.  With Cinderella, however, the point of her only seen as a beauty when she’s been dressed up, for me seems to be the most damaging one: as I previously mentioned, the current knowledge of psychological issues can determine how much a young girl’s confidence is determined by her belief in her own beauty and the things that she might do to conceal or enhance certain attributes of herself; the thing is, if we’re constantly being told that we should love ourselves but we’re also being told that we should look pretty and be happy all the time in order to be loved in return, those  mixed messages can really mortify a great deal of people, and watching a story in which the girl is already pretty but is not being seen because she hasn’t got pretty clothes or makeup on, and only when she does wear all of that then she wows the world, is definitely not my idea of a good example.

I have previously talked extensively about my insights on beauty on previous entries, which you’re more than welcome to read, too. As of now, though, I’ll only say two things about it: 1) we’re all beings of beauty, because a strict measure of what’s beautiful and what’s not cannot truly exist, given that 2) we all have a different taste and we all consider different people beautiful… even those who are considered “Universal beauty icons” can seem unattractive to some of us, because we all have a different perception of what we believe is beautiful.  Having said that, changing things in us to fit in with what “the world” says is beautiful will only lead us into a never-ending cycle of never being happy with ourselves.

Let’s get back to the literary aspects of the story. Given that I’ve already stated that there is no character progression or depth in Cinderella and that’s an important literary quality for me in order to like or dislike a story, I’ll just point out that’s one more reason for my disapproval of it and move on to the next one… I had a very interesting conversation with my husband some time ago about Ariel, because she’s the other example within fairytales which involves the changing oneself to get the other person to fall for you. As opposed to Cinderella, I actually defend Ariel because she had always wanted to be part of our world, even before she cast eyes on Eric, so he was basically just the excuse for her to try it out. There are a couple of things that are very wrong in the situation, however, and one is Ariel’s resignation to the loss of her voice (read: to the loss of her opinion!), and the other is the fact that she still clung to him even though he was unable to recognize her just because she was mute now – especially after all he claimed to be in love with her…  The benefit of the doubt that we could give him is that the gorgeous red-headed girl he had in front of his eyes now was in fact voice-less, whereas the gorgeous red-headed girl that rescued him had sung a heart-melting song, jumped into the sea, then popped out her head to make her point clear before disappearing once again… yet, why didn’t HE give the benefit of the doubt to HER, and realised that she was in fact the same girl and that something had gone wrong? Still, my defence of her lies in how she gave up a piece of herself to belong in a place where she’d always wanted to belong anyhow, and to take the chance of finding true love as well – a situation that all of us expats understand only too well!  On the other hand, my husband said that her original desire was that both worlds could understand each other and that she intended to belong here without having to let go everything that meant being a mermaid. This only happens towards the end, when she’s given the chance to change back and forth at leisure – well, at least in the Disney version! In the original version she is not successful in getting the prince to recognise her in time and she turns to foam, so, as much as it pains me, I must agree with my husband and say that Ariel gave everything up for a man, and this includes herself in every way: not just her voice but her freedom, essence and even life in the end, and all for someone who never recognised her as someone worthy of loving. Scary as it sounds, a lot of women go through that so often and so quietly that we don’t see even half of them… The case of the woman who loves too much is frequently in the spotlight, leaving the case of the woman who tries too hard way back, alone to her luck to turning to foam all by herself…

That being said, The Little Mermaid is also misunderstood in another way: why is the loss of Ariel’s voice seen as the loss of her opinion? Back then maybe yes, back when the story was originally written, because mute people were frequently thought as unintelligent – but not today! It’s unfair to make it seem that children will grow up with the idea that if they don’t say anything then their opinion won’t count, both because the mute and the introvert have a thousand ways to show their opinion nowadays, and at the very least that should be taught from home, even if what the children watch is somewhat lacking in information or technique. The Disney version has both good and bad things, but I think that one of the good things that the creators of this version did was focus on how Ariel not only becomes part of the human world, but also about the psychological changes that overcome her once she’s able to experience all that she had only but imagined, and how that stimulates her to truly understand this world instead of quitting and letting go out of fear… that, and the original desire and intention of helping both worlds understand each other and grow and evolve in friendship are another couple of things that we expats can understand only too much!

I will leave you with that, kind readers, for you to mull over and create your own opinions on these stories – I could be terribly wrong or terribly right about either one of them, who knows?  One thing is for sure, there are many more elements to study within the dissections of all stories, and the older the more content of wisdom or revulsion we can find… the choice to continue fragmenting these stories is yours alone.

I will return next week with a final instalment – for now – in the fairytale theme.  Then we’ll go off on an adventure of some sort, but I haven’t yet decided on our destination.

Love and happy reading,

Sandra Tena ≈ Writer, dreamer, seeker, lover

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Fairytales: a Defence of Happy Endings

In honour of International Book Day, I cannot let this week go by without speaking of something that shaped my growth: fairytales and happy endings.

There are three specific fairytales that I’ve been wanting to include in this list: Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty. Snow White because it is the first thing I distinctly recall sitting down and reading as a full story by myself at age six – not a nursery rhyme or learning-story (those made up of animals, numbers or colours), and not a “grown up” children’s story being read by my mum or my sister (such as the very same Snow White being read by my mum or my sister, for instance); this time it had been myself that had scanned my bookcase, taken out the “grown up” children’s story book, turned the pages to see which illustrations were more appealing to me, and climbed into bed to read.  I read it from beginning to end, completely unaware that it was the beginning of my long years of reading in bed until three or four in the morning, perhaps not even aware that it was the beginning of a life of solitary creation, yet absolutely conscious of the joy and satisfaction that the rolling of the sentences left in my mind and mouth (up ‘til today, I still read moving my lips every once in a while – maybe it’s the dyslexia acting up, maybe it’s that it helps me visualize the sentences clearer when I’m in a noisy place, or maybe it’s just that I absolutely love the feeling of the words and sentences in my mouth.  Whichever the reason, I’ll always stand up for the people whose lips move as they read, because it’s not a sign of lesser intellect or meekness, so we should all be left alone and respected for however we read or write.  Yes, I’m also referring to those of us who ‘talk alone’, the writers and actors who act up their dialogues in the middle of the street or pub or store – sometimes our characters climb out through our skin and mouth, nothing wrong with that, either).

Right, coming back to the subject at hand: Snow White and how reading that story alone for the first time made me relish in the act of reading.  It was also around that time that I wrote my first poem, a sad little piece about the death of my grandfather, a man still in his fifties who left a whole in my heart because for the first time I’d learned what it was to feel that you’ll never get to know that person because they’re irreversibly gone – even now the consciousness of the precariousness of life and the horrible thought of love lost through death makes me cringe and go mute when the conversation arises, be it in class, in a philosophical debate, in a café with friends or going up the stairs of my block of flats with my amazing husband as we talk about Bridget Jones. Put that intensity of thought inside a five-year-old who knows the world only through her feelings and what you get is a child that will ultimately find her solace in a fairytale about a love lost which was revived with a kiss.

That’s reason number one for my ongoing defence of happy endings: the kiss that will save lives and loves, the ultimate proof that a person cares so much for another that they will get them back from the underworld by the most magical and intimate touch that can ever happen between two people: as the lips meet, the souls connect. If that first soul connection goes right, then that’s a happy beginning and the two of them can set out to build their happy ending. The “they lived happily ever after” thing that so many people seem to hate today, because it gives a “fake notion of reality” or so they say, should never be withdrawn from people’s hopes and dreams, especially if they have been through a difficult path, through a rough situation that has made them become seekers of better things, or even if they’ve “only” been hurt in love and know they deserve better (for some reason, the notion nowadays seems to be that love issues are less important than life-and-death ones, yet I believe that love should be considered just as important in a person’s life as food, water, shelter and the free choice of education, religion, culture, etc.).  And yet, there is a very simple thing to understand here, and that is that the detractors of the “happily ever after” tend to refuse it on the basis of saying that what will eventually break down the couple’s happiness could be his infidelity, her neurosis, his violence, her disloyalty, or any mix-and-match of the above; to that I ask, why has it become so normal to believe that one will hurt the other so badly? Can’t we believe in ourselves as beings of love and understanding? Yes, I know, there are plenty of humans who seem to be made up of pure evil, but that’s a whole other psychological issue to cover at another time (and those are the very same people that the heroes get rid of in fairytales, anyways).

Still, in these kinds of tales, the prince and the princess get their happily ever after because their story is one of search, growth, understanding, maybe even evolution. In some cases, the princesses have had to change their way of life in order to learn something and achieve a higher state of mind, and the princes have had to devote a certain amount of time to search for their reward, to fight off dragons and ogres and become themselves stronger and more determined. Both of them become worthy of the other, and both of them deserve happiness after all the tribulations they’ve had to endure.

Fairytales are not a metaphor of the girl who sits and waits or the man who uses brute force to achieve something, and they’re not allegories to blindness to the truth behind the shiny exterior of the prince and princess, either, but the other way around! They see each other shine because they have polished themselves enough through their trials, and they’ve come to the other side ready to find each other, and they will always and forever deserve that happy ending.

Sure, happily ever after doesn’t mean they won’t hurt when their parents die (because the prince can only become king when his father dies, after all), or that they’ll never have rows about money or how to decorate the house or might even get a few more trials come their way: maybe they’ll lose their first child, another kingdom might try to invade, they realise that the kingdom has gone bankrupt, etc.; yet what’ll keep them sane and returning to happiness will be determined by how they deal with any of those things together, because one of the many things that happiness is, it is a choice, so if they choose to remain loving and supportive, and to keep a positive outlook on life because they’re together to deal with those new tribulations, they will manage to keep the happily ever after active through the ups or downs they might experience… Well, sure, the best thing would be that none of those bad things happen, because they’re fully deserving of unfaltering happiness, as I’ve previously mentioned, but in any case and event, what I just described in this paragraph is my answer to those who say that LIFE cannot contain a happily ever after for any given person – make of that what you will.

Yet, before I go, I need to add that I’m not excusing the over-simplification of fairytales of the sexist interpretations that have been made over and over by movie studios and toy brands. That’s their mistake, not the original tale in question. And regarding the original fairytales: yes, some of them are horrifying and traumatic (hence my inspiration for my paranormal crime thriller Wideawake being Sleeping Beauty!), but that’s exactly why they deserve a happy ending, poor souls!

With that in mind, I will speak of Sleeping Beauty, and also about Beauty and the Beast another time. For now I bid you all farewell and wish upon you a shower of love!

Sandra Cole ≈ Writer, dreamer, seeker, lover

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