Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into it and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and golden eggs and dancing slippers and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time beasts are distractions from the tough core of most of these stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in the world, and to come into your own.
Sometimes the key arrives before the lock. Sometimes a house falls onto a wicked witch’s head. Once upon a time a bat fell onto mine. It came out of nowhere one dark and blustery night, a crash from above and then a soft, fluttery body careening against the side of my face. It’s never awesome when a bat smacks you in the head but it was especially not awesome as I was convinced it was the latest salvo from my ancient next door neighbor who had cast a spell on me.
I didn’t see the curse coming. Late one night last fall a shadow fell across my face as I slept, and I awoke to the angry Javanese mutterings of my neighbor, her face pressed against the bars of my window above my bed. Naturally, as one does when a scary old lady whisper threatens you from the window above your bed, I freaked. Family members were summoned to take the old woman away but it was too late–the curse had been cast. In the days and months that followed strange things started to befall me; wasps that I hadn’t seen before began descending from the roof above my bed. I was stung six times with stingers the size of a fingernail. Spiders bit my ankles as I slept. I once spent an entire Saturday duking it out with a mouse that had laid siege to my wardrobe. My Javanese curse seemed to be an onslaught of plagues, biblical in sense and stature. Or maybe these were all just part of the Peace Corps package.
The heaping number of wasp nests in my roof made me begin to read fairy tales again. These stories are full of overwhelming piles that need to be contended with; the roomful of straw that poor girl in “Rumpelstiltskin” needs to spin into gold overnight, the one thousand pearls scattered in the forest the youngest son needs to gather to win the princess, the mountain of sand to be moved by teaspoon. The heaps are only a subset category of impossible tasks that include quests, such as gathering a feather from the tail of a firebird at the end of the world, nonsensical riddles and facing overwhelming obstacles. I read about an accursed queen who must spin cobwebs into thread, climb a mountain with a millstone around her neck and fill a pitcher full of holes in order to transform the green serpent to whom she is married back into a human being. Such tasks are always the challenges to becoming, to being set free, or finding love. Carrying out the tasks undoes the curse. Enchantment in these stories is the state of being disguised, or displaced. Disenchantment is the blessing of becoming yourself.
My Peace Corps service has been disenchantingly eye-opening, and therefore a gift. Lucy is never the same once she discovers the world inside her wardrobe, and neither am I now that I have discovered a little more about Java. I possess more patience, I savor the little things and I’m at peace with imperfection. In the fairytale metaphor I’m going for here, it’d be lovely to cast myself as the princess heroine grappling with a curse, but that would be dishonest. I am not always my best self out here. I complain, rage and whine. Some days I hole up in my room and hide (from wasps and scary neighbors and life alike).
Although being a Peace Corps volunteer often radiates an altruistic glow to friends and family back home, the truth is that there’s a bit of a villain in all of us. We cannot be good and kind and optimistic all the time. I have handled situations out here in a way that I am not always proud of. Difficulty is a school, though learning is optional.
The most recent challenge in my Javanese fairy tale is the accursed parasite I am currently battling (although I’m fighting it from a comfy hotel room so I can’t really complain). Being sick in the Peace Corps is particularly joyless because of how isolated and powerless one feels on the road to recovery. But fairy tales are almost always the stories of the powerless; of abandoned children, humans transformed into birds and beasts, princesses punished by stepmothers or jealous queens (why are women especially competitive and evil towards one another in these stories?). Yet power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness.
In the last month a tacit alliance has been formed with my ancient curse-whispering neighbor in the form of my cat, Agatha Christie. Agatha is a scrappy young thing, fond of cockroaches and long naps. She’s very easy to love, so no surprise my neighbor enjoys her company too. I used to worry about Agatha during the short weekend trips I sometimes take with friends, but such thoughts vanished when I came home after Thanksgiving to find Agatha swaddled in a makeshift baby sling, being sashayed around my village against the bosom of my neighbor. That cat has it made. Ever since Agatha came into my neighbor’s and my life, this woman has been kinder to me. This means she has stopped lunging at me when I walk by too close and she occasionally says something friendly sounding as Agatha trots to and fro between our houses. The wasps for the most part have disappeared, although that could also just be due to the rainy season. Maybe I shouldn’t have blamed my neighbor so much.
I recently talked with a fellow PCV friend of mine about regrets, and the things we wish we had handled differently throughout our service. While there are scenarios personal and professional I inwardly cringe at, I wouldn’t give this disenchanting journey back for anything. None of us are immaculate, and isn’t that divine? If I had said no to this, I would have always wondered what would have happened, I would have forever felt that I’d turned down a treasure that could have been mine, had turned down a chance to live–and what matters is that I said yes to adventure, to the unknown, to possibility.
My life on Java has been a fairy tale, but not a fantasy. There has been struggle and adversity and wonder and beauty. I often get lost–there are moments I wish for a mossy log I could dramatically sit down on and cry. Sometimes I do. I don’t have a fairy godmother or ruby slippers or a singing voice enchanting to woodland creatures. But I am lucky to have wonderful volunteers around me who support me in everything I do, whether that be a community project or binge watching a tv show in bed. I can laugh at myself and I know how to be my own best friend out here. I am less prone to throwing myself down on mossy logs these days. More often I am carrying on.
I hope these support systems stay with me once my time in the Peace Corps is over (the fact that I only have 4 months left is another astounding thing altogether). Fairy tales are the roadmaps through which we can trace our own journeys–even if we don’t know how it will end. The stories themselves provide compelling images of exile, loneliness, affection and metamorphosis–elements of a life that are more vividly felt off the page than on. No matter what we are doing and where we are living, we all possess lives filled with magic and madness; we are all facing challenges and curses and we are all doing our best to make it through the woods and be better. You don’t necessarily need a cat named Agatha to tell you it’s all one big, beautiful disenchanting mystery. You need only to look at your imperfect life and see it as precious.
rootsandfernweh 