“Every man’s life is a fairy tale written by God’s fingers.”

– Hans Christian Andersen

Once upon a summer morning, a girl awoke early.  Her whole spirit was tingling with such excitement that she could no longer sleep.

“Where are you going?” her mother asked.

“Oh, Mother, there is such excitement in the air this morning that I simply cannot stay in bed.  I am going out to the meadow, to the place where the sun rises.”  Perhaps when I get there I will learn what it is that has awakened me while the stars still twinkle and the moon owns the sky.”

She kissed her mother goodbye and, leaving her shoes behind, tiptoed out into the early morning darkness.  ’How funny,’ the girl thought, ‘that I always tiptoe when I walk in the dark.’  She stepped outside and into the dewy grass.  It was cool and moist, and it tickled her feet; not only with its feathery leaves, but with tiny pearls of dew that fell between her toes.  She giggled, and in that moment she thought she heard the dew giggling, too.  ’Funny,’ she thought, ‘maybe that is the sound the dew makes — a giggle.’  Amused by her own thoughts, the girl giggled again; but this time, she was looking up at the still-dark sky of morning.  Just as the joyful sound left her lips, she saw a star twinkle among the thousands of stars that shone in the darkness.  ’Perhaps,’ she thought, ‘I am not giggling at all.  Perhaps that sound is the sound of a twinkle.’  And she tiptoed on through the morning dew, twinkling all the way to the meadow where the sun would soon rise.

The meadow was as still as cat’s feet walking on cotton.  Even the sound of her own breathing seemed noisy, and the girl found herself taking tiny breaths, for fear of spoiling the silent magic that hung in the air all around.  She found a spot on a large, smooth stone and sat as still as the very stone itself, looking toward the East and waiting for the light.  Soon a glow began to appear on the horizon.  At first it was so subtle that the girl was not quite certain whether it was real or whether she only imagined it.  Whichever came first, her imagination or the light itself, the sky soon began to glow with the radiance of a brand new day.

The dewdrops sparkled, and the girl thought of the stars that had twinkled their giggling sounds such a short time ago.  ’Maybe,’ she thought, ‘the stars themselves ask the sun to sparkle on each shining dewdrop.’  She wanted to giggle; but the quiet breeze of daybreak began to move ever so softly, putting the leaves of the trees to its lips and whispering, “Shhh.”  The girl sat silently and listened to the sound of the sunrise.

The sky began to play a song that was blue and orange-pink and filled with joy.  ’How odd,’ thought the girl, as she saw in the sky the very colors of her own bright blue eyes and strawberry hair.  She, too was filled with the joy of the sunrise song; and as her heart began to dance, the girl found herself preparing to rise from her seat on the stone.  Just then, she heard a rustling sound in the leaves of the ancient tree whose branches hung above her head.  Silently, she returned to her perch, turned her eyes upward, and searched for the source of the noise that had startled her.  As if by magic, there appeared on a bare branch above her a tiny little bluebird.

He looked toward the sunrise, and the sunrise looked back.  It was then that the girl saw it.  The sunrise colors were those of the bluebird; or maybe the bluebird was the color of sunrise.  There in the meadow, beneath the blue and strawberry sky, the little bird opened his beak and began to sing.  Again, the girl’s heart began to dance; and she knew in an instant that the song of the bluebird was also the song of the sunrise.  She heard it in her heart.  With blue eyes twinkling and her strawberry curls shining in the morning light, she began to dance the music of the rising sun.  And the dewdrops giggled as her feet sent them flying in the morning breeze.