For the days when the real world feels too heavy

Dear Wanderer,

For the person who sometimes finds the real world a little too loud, too hard, too disappointing, or simply too much.

For the person who has invented another place in their mind — a cottage behind a crooked garden gate, a library filled with impossible books, a pantry where tiny dragons steal biscuits and an interfering crow knows far more than he ought to.

Perhaps someone has told you that you spend too much time in your imagination.

Let them.

There is nothing foolish about finding comfort in a world you created.

Human beings have always told stories when reality became difficult. We have invented secret gardens, enchanted forests, distant planets, talking animals, brave heroes and impossible kingdoms. Sometimes imagination is entertainment.

And sometimes it is shelter.

Wildflower Hollow was built from imagination, but the comfort it gives is real.

The flowers may exist only on a page. Basil may never actually get his head stuck in a biscuit jar. Beady Eyes may never sit on your windowsill and inform you that your life choices require immediate reconsideration.

But the smile they give you?

That is real.

The moment your shoulders relax is real.

The little spark that makes you wonder what happens next is real.

And sometimes, dear Wanderer, what happens next is reason enough for today.

So if today is one of the difficult days, you do not have to solve your whole life before bedtime.

You do not have to know where you will be next year.

You do not even have to feel hopeful yet.

Make the world smaller for a while.

Make a cup of tea.

Open a window.

Water something that is growing.

Sit beside someone you trust.

Read one more chapter.

Write one ridiculous paragraph.

Bake something.

Talk to somebody.

Rest.

And if you need to, come through the gates of Wildflower Hollow for a little while.

There will be a chair waiting beside the fire.

Donna will put the kettle on.

Basil will almost certainly be somewhere he has specifically been told not to be.

Malachar will be sleeping outside the door.

And Beady Eyes will pretend that he has not been worried about you.

But remember something important:

Wildflower Hollow is a place to rest. It is not a place where you have to disappear.

Take whatever comfort you find here and carry a little of it back into the real world with you.

Because there are still ordinary things waiting there that you have not experienced yet.

A person you haven't met.

A book you haven't read.

A ridiculous conversation that will make you laugh until you cannot breathe.

A flower you haven't planted.

A song you haven't heard.

A morning that will feel completely different from this one.

A story you haven't written yet.

There are chapters of your life whose pages are still blank.

Please don't mistake a painful chapter for the ending.

And if all you can manage today is to stay long enough to see what happens tomorrow, then that is enough.

You don't have to be brave today.

You only have to stay.

We'll leave the lantern on.

With love from all of us at Wildflower Hollow,

J. S. Marlowe

P.S. Beady Eyes wishes it formally recorded that Basil has never once been authorised to open the biscuit jar.

Basil disputes this.

The investigation continues. 🐦‍⬛🐉