People are writing to fairies about their pandemic concerns. The fairies are writing back.
One day amid the pandemic, Lisa Suhay noticed a young girl having a tantrum outside her house in Norfolk. Little Ellie was distraught over the lack of books about fairies in the free library that sat in front of Suhay’s home, so Suhay gave her a book about fairies she had written herself. Minutes later, Ellie was knocking at her door demanding to know if the fairies in the story lived at her house.
“I told her that if she waited till the next weekend, [the fairies] will have completely moved in,” says Suhay.
The next time Ellie visited, a fairy door, as well as a magical mailbox for exchanging letters with the fae had appeared outside Suhay’s house. Since then, the fairyland in Suhay’s yard has become a small tourist attraction. People of all ages have all come to correspond with the fairies, releasing their concerns in letters to a more mystical world.
“In some cases, I thought I was corresponding with toddlers when it was an adult trying to cling to a little hope,” says Suhay.
Although these “fairy pen pals” began in a front yard during a pandemic, they are expanding beyond the yard and the virus. The Fairy Tree Pen Pals website connects children all over Virginia to the fairies flitting around their own neighborhoods so they can keep in touch with the charming creatures.
“I don’t see this ending with COVID-19, but rather becoming a conduit of hope that can and should be broadcast, modeled, and shared nationwide,” says Suhay. FairyPenPals.com
This article originally appeared in the December 2020 issue.
