LOST IN THE WOODS

"And there they both sat, grown up and yet children, children at heart..." I clearly don't have kids. How else could I have mistaken this anthem from the Walt Disney take of Hans Christian Andersen's 1844 fairy tale "The Snow Queen", for an unfamiliar ballad by the 1970's San Franciscan band, Journey?

Anyway, my best friend's mother (who is like a godmother to me) recently celebrated her birthday.

You know how some people like muffins while others prefer cupcakes? Well, she falls in a third category all her own, stuff the muffins and the cupcakes, just give her the icing. That's exactly what I did for her birthday. I made two batches of buttercream icing, the equivalent to go on two cakes, one part vanilla, the other chocolate. It's not the sort of birthday cake one puts candles on, or even shares, but it's the best sort of birthday cake for her.

Fortunately for the rest of us, her daughter made a batch of caramel cupcakes and topped them with coffee mocha buttered icing and decorated those with dark chocolate. It's an incredible flavour explosion, like three classic flavours in a synchronised dance.

They however had another birthday party to attend tonight, so her daughter is having a sleep over here. 

It must be pretty boring to her here, to be honest, so I took out some paint and colouring-in crayons for her to play with, besides her own usual toys.

She showed no interest in it till after supper. Clearly bored, I encouraged her to play some music, and that's the song she chose to listen to on repeat. 

It was not until afterwards, when I viewed all her art pieces together, that I realised the song was the soundtrack to her reproduction of Frozen.

The song in question? Lost In The Woods, by Jonathan Groff. 

Yea, it definitely has a sort of Journey vibe going there, but I guess it was the lyrics I kept hearing over and over again, that ultimately intrigued me.

And all of it brought me back to the original story by Hans Christian Andersen, about a boy who lost his way in the world and got trapped as if dead, frozen in pride and cynicism, and a girl who loved him enough to go to the end of the world, just to warm his cold heart, and thus bring him back to life, and ultimately also home.

This here has always been my favourite passage from that story,

"Gerda kissed his cheeks and they grew rosy, she kissed his eyes and they shone like hers, she kissed his hands and his feet, and he became well and strong."

WORDS: rhodenel©30NOV2024 

PHOTOGRAPHY: rhoderuth©NOV2024