Cinderella has always seemed like an autumn fairy tale to me. Perrault's variant features the most autumnal of fruits, a pumpkin, turned into a magical coach, and I have always imagined the mice and lizards who become Cinderella's carriage drivers and footmen skittering around in the fallen leaves of Cinderella's garden while they wait for the Fairy Godmother's wand to work its magic. Even the leaves of early autumn seem to echo the fairy tale's theme of transformation, bedecking themselves in glorious shades of red, orange, and yellow as they waltz through the celestial ballroom of the skies.
My husband agrees that Cinderella is an autumn fairy tale, but he doesn't view the story or the season through my fairy-tinted glasses. He thinks autumn is a season of toil. The brilliantly colored leaves which decorate the branches will wither and fall, piling over the lawn no matter how fastidiously he rakes them away. And, although he understands that autumn is a time of transformation, he sees the months turning bleak, ushering in the cold winter with piles of snow that will need to be shoveled. The dark half of the year turns my husband into a Cinderfella, endlessly completing tasks assigned by an evil Step-Mother-Nature, and far too tired to attend the King's ball.
It can be stressful to keep up with the outdoor chores of autumn and impending winter, but, maybe instead of trying to separate the dying leaves from the still-living lawn, we need to relax a bit, and enjoy the season's untidy beauty. In The Brothers' Grimm version of Cinderella, it is a tree that answers the girl's wishes, throwing gold and silver down on her so she has a dress and shoes to wear to the dance. I like to watch the falling leaves of late autumn and think of them as gifts from the trees, gold and silver that decorates our lawn with cluttered elegance. While my neighbors may strive for the perfection of a perfectly manicured lawn, I revel in the messy piles of leaves that my oak and maple trees throw down, and I always find myself a little bit sad when my husband finally cleans them away.
Cinderella's transformation into a beautiful woman who captures the heart of the prince is often considered the high point of her fairy tale, but perhaps just as important is the moment the prince recognizes Cinderella even though she is clothed in her rags. There is great beauty in the fallen leaves and barren sticks of late autumn if we are willing to see it, and, if we are lucky, maybe Mother Nature will send us a Fairy Godmother to help us clean everything up in the spring.
Kelly Jarvis works as the Assistant Editor for The Fairy Tale Magazine where she writes stories, poems, essays, book reviews, and interviews. Her poetry has also been featured or is forthcoming in Blue Heron Review, Mermaids Monthly, Eternal Haunted Summer, Forget Me Not Press, The Magic of Us, A Moon of One’s Own, Baseball Bard, and Corvid Queen. Her short fiction has appeared in The Chamber Magazine and the World Weaver Press Anthology Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. You can connect with her on Facebook (Kelly Jarvis, Author) or Instagram (@kellyjarviswriter) or find her at https://kellyjarviswriter.com/
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