A Hoppy-Go-Lucky Story

Guest Post by Maria Kornacki, Circle Member

I know a young lassie. Her name is Hoppy. But when she tells people her name, they seem to hear “Happy”.

“Oh! Happy,” they exclaim. “What a nice name.” This happens over and over.

Hoppy is frustrated. “No, not Happy. Hoppy! Why does everyone call me Happy?”

Well, maybe folks just don’t know there’s a name like Hoppy. And maybe there wasn’t till Hoppy came along.

Hoppy marches off and stands in front of a mirror to check on who she is. Her Hoppy face stares back at her. But there’s a surprise there. Happy is staring back at her too. Hoppy is astonished. This is surely a puzzle for her clubhouse. Yes, her clubhouse, tucked away in a quiet meadow beside her home.

And today is surely a good day to go to her clubhouse because the sun is glowing warmly, its heat like a second skin. She jumps up, grabs a small rucksack and she’s on her way, racing across the meadow, flattening the goldenrod as she runs. She hears a Meadowlark calling from a fence post and stops to watch the lark’s breast rise and swell as a song leaps from its throat. She wonders if she too might have a song, a song that is all her own. The thought pleases her but she doesn’t do anything about it. Not just yet.

The meadow is freshly washed by last night’s rain but it’s drying fast in the sun’s warmth. A rather large maple stands by a shallow creek at the edge of this meadow. A gusting breeze brushes Hoppy’s face and shivers through the maple leaves. Hoppy curls up in a crook at the base of the tree. The maple leaves are tossing about overhead and the sun’s rays are skipping on the surface of the jostling leaves. This is Hoppy’s clubhouse for one; her very own private nest. The spreading roots offer her a spacious lap under the maple’s leafy shelter.

The canopy plays a swishing melody overhead as Hoppy recites her name, followed by that other name, the name which seems always to be a partner to her own name.

“Hoppy, happy, happy hoppy,

happily, hoppily,

hoppily, happily …” goes the rhythm of her words. But she stops this quite suddenly and gasps.

“They’re twins,” she announces. “Hoppy and Happy are twins. They are twin names and they belong together.”

She likes this very much. She closes her eyes to picture these twins more clearly. It feels as if she is holding hands with two elves, or two little elfin thoughts. They are a little like angel cherubs who can whisper little hoppy and happy secrets to her.

She is very pleased with herself and sighs a hoppity happy kind of a sigh, as she settles back to enjoy the leafy activity above her. There’s enough movement up there in the maple branches to suggest a flapping of wings, but nothing actually takes off; lots of swinging and swaying and tossing and twirling, but always on the spot. She stares into the layers of foliage reaching up and up, with scattered clouds beyond. The clouds are on the move, changing shape as they go, but the maple and its shifting branches stay rooted in place, cradling her clubhouse for one.

Hoppy smiles and whispers words of greeting.

“Hallo, maple tree friend. I like your home in this meadow. I hope you’re happy here. Maybe hoppy too.”

Then she thinks she hears the maple whisper a wee secret. The secret brushes her ear just as the breeze does the same thing – brushes her ear, I mean. This is what she thinks she hears: I’m very hoppy to be here.

She stares at the tree, her eyes open wide.

“What did you say, did you say something, was that a real whisper?” The words come tumbling out of her, she is so astonished.

“I’m very hoppy to be here.” It’s more like a breath than a whisper. It’s more like a thought in her heart. She leaps up and hops up and down. Her excitement is a skippety hoppity kind of joy.

“Hoppy to be here,” she whispers to herself. “Very hoppy to be here.”

She had thought this was her clubhouse for one. But now it’s a club for two. The second member is the maple. She rummages in her rucksack and pulls out a small tatty notebook. She opens the notebook to a page that has purple writing on it. The very first line is underlined and reads like this:

My Club for One

She scratches out “My club for one” and neatly prints out a new title:

My Club for Two

She breathes a loud sigh as she reads more purple words sitting below the new title:

Password: fortitude

Colour: purple

Secrets: unknown

Well, she knew that secrets would have to be a part of having a club. She expected they would be whispered in her ear at some point. She had been waiting for this with a patience that bordered on a secretive kind of secret of its own. Now she scratches out “Secrets: unknown.” And below this newly scratched out part, she writes:

Secrets:

Secret #1: “I’m very hoppy to be here!”

She’s very, very pleased, as if something important has happened and she’s played a big part in making it happen. It’s as if she’s had an adventure. She’s not really sure what to do with it all but she has a happy kind of feeling about things. In her notebook, she now has the words that came from the maple tree, her secret #1. Maybe the elfin folk have secrets too and maybe she already knows a secret or two more but she hasn’t thought of it that way.

She turns to the notebook again. She frowns and bites the top of her purple pencil as she ponders the morning’s adventure. Then she writes in her notebook and the purple looks like this:

Secrets:

Secret #1: “I’m very hoppy to be here!”

Secret #2: Hoppy and Happy are twins!

Secret #3: When Hoppy and Happy are together, elves and cherubs and magic happen.

She thinks maybe she has finished. But no. She hasn’t finished yet because quite suddenly she hears the Meadowlark again. It’s singing close by and she knows exactly what to write next:

Secret #4: I have my very own song. I can sing my song whenever my song wants to be sung. It’s my “hoppy-go-lucky” song.

She feels very good about this last secret. It’s as if she has arrived somewhere. Her song is ready to bubble up and over. Any minute now. Listen up !!

***

Home Practice:

Imagine embarking on a spring wander in the magical woods to discover your very own “clubhouse for one”.

What does your clubhouse look like, feel like, sound like, taste and smell like?

What would it be like to receive a secret in the whispers of nature that twins up with the innocence in your own essence?