At the farm, I found the video of A Little Princess—surprised, as a boy had grown up there, but grateful to the young girl who had forgotten it. After many enchanted viewings, I bought my own to have in India. Although I love to dance, my favorite swing songs and rock and roll aren’t played at the New Year’s Eve party, so I decided to watch the movie in pajamas on the sofa, enjoying seven-year-old Sara Crewe’s ayah* telling her that all girls are princesses.
Sara must leave India for boarding school with her only comfort being a last gift from her father of a doll named Emily who, he tells her, will bring messages from him wherever he is in the war, and will take hers to him. When the strict and jealous headmistress callously breaks up Sara’s birthday party to tell her that her father has died, a black balloon sinisterly or comfortingly glides from the next room toward Sara—then bursts.
One day at Wal-Mart, standing halfway down the school aisle, I paused with my eyes focused at mid-distance deciding what to look for next when suddenly my thoughts stopped cold. Diagonally across the intersecting aisle at the far end of the card racks, a black balloon was slowly moving toward me, then turned the corner, clearly in my direction—as if it were coming to me.
My realization is, “We do not need to be where there is religious, spiritual, or healing significance to be approached by an unnamed presence.”
*ayah, in India, is a native maid who is a nanny