Dear President Trump,

I wrote to you yesterday about rainbows and today I’m going to focus on fairies. Who knows, maybe it’ll be unicorns tomorrow!

So, fairies. Yesterday I lamented how messed up we humans (I said “us humans” but it should have been “we humans”) can be, but we humans can also be pretty wonderful, especially those who are of the kind-fairy sort. Those types seem to pop in when you least expect them and often when you don’t absolutely need them, but when they do, they make things go tons better.

The first fairy intervention happened last week when our daughter was checking in for her flight home. She had one huge suitcase and one good-sized duffel bag. The suitcase weighed in at 77 lbs, which would have cost $100 were it not for Fairy #1, aka the very nice airline check-in woman who went and got a cardboard box and packing tape and helped our daughter repack her books into the box. And lo and behold, the box weighed exactly 27 lbs, which meant that the suitcase was now miraculously within the allowable weight limits and wouldn’t incur the insane baggage fee. I wasn’t there, but the story is that the nice airline woman did all this without any fanfare or fuss, just stepped up and helped out in an incredibly kind way.

The second fairy situation was more of an interaction than an intervention, but it was still wonderful. Yesterday after work I was meeting Laura and some friends for dinner at a new restaurant in Capitol Hill, which is a very busy part of town with lots of young people who dart across the streets and seem convinced of their own immortality. In other words, driving in that area is fraught and I generally avoid it. Also, parking in that area is even more fraught and one generally needs to be prepared to walk many blocks from one’s car to one’s destination.

I was running a little late, but I was in the vicinity of the restaurant and had managed not to scare myself or anyone else and thought I’d take a chance and see if there happened to be any parking right there. And there was (I often do have a parking fairy)! I was pulled up alongside the car in front of the spot ready to parallel park (do you know how to parallel park? somehow I can’t see you having this particular skill) and when I turned to start the maneuvers there was a guy pulling into the spot. I was pretty shocked. I had my blinker on and was backing into the spot when he started his move. I thought about it for a nanosecond and decided to honk and gesticulate a tiny bit ~ no middle finger or anything like that, more of a “what gives?” sort of gesture. Incredibly he mouthed an apology, pulled away, and left.

I went on and parked with no further drama. I had nearly finished at the parking pay-station when a very tall white guy dressed in black came up to me and was all apologies for having almost taken “my” spot. He said he thought I was pulling out. He then proceeded to pick up my parking receipt that had somehow escaped it’s little berth during our exchange, hand it to me, and wish me a good night. Thus, he became human Fairy #2 for being an all around decent, kind human being.

It just dawned on me that I had an opportunity to be a fairy to him and let him have the spot. Maybe next time.

May we be safe and open to the fairies in our midst.
May we be happy to be fairies for others.
May we understand that we are collectively healthier when there’s more kindness circulating.
May we have the courage to be peaceful with one another.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson