By Gordon Kearns
It's the only rational conclusion: Suzie, Jon, Brian, and Lynn were elves, as were a handful of other kids I've known.
The fact is, for the past century as the inexorable westward expansion of humankind overran the world's magic forests and mystic mountain glades, more and more elves found it necessary to cross over into the society of regular people. In the course of time they interbred with their human neighbors, to the extent that, like left-handedness and perfect pitch, elves can pop up in any family. When they do, it's with all their magic genes intact. Sad to say, most don't know they're elves and never realize they could on a whim disappear or fly ... or make shoes.
However, without their magic to go by, there's nothing spectacular enough about elves to set them apart from the rest of us. These days to spot an elf you must get to know him or her well, and be observant enough to notice the subtle but real differences that do exist between elves and us. Hint: you'll find these differences most apparent in the way elves' peculiar view of life diverges from ours.
Here's the key: while elves might aspire to be like us, their betraying elfin spirits will never permit total commitment to our standard virtues. Tinkerbell tried and tried to be what she thought Peter Pan wanted, but there was no way the sprite could settle into the practical skills of his Wendy. Tinkerbell was a flickering firefly flitting around and among Peter and his friends: however, in her saucy heart she was never really one of them. Peter himself was an elf, of course. We know he could fly, but more telling was his compulsion to hold onto the everlasting adventures of his Never-Never Land.
We humans always focus on end purposes; we're goal oriented as if by our nature. We consider experiences as the means to achieve the more lasting, perhaps bigger things: happiness, security, recognition, influence ... whatever.
Elves' attitudes are more subjective, and they're more interested in their transient perceptions. They get caught up in the joy of an experience itself, and they find fascination in the feelings, theirs and everyone else's, that are aroused by the experience.
Take Suzie. Following her natural inclinations she would easily slip into detours from well-planned and even interesting learning paths. Sure, she'd more or less attend to the progress of the class at hand, but typically, her mind would react with her own elfish twists. As with most of her breed, her writings, while dogged with spelling and mechanical errors she should long ago have outgrown, were sprinkled with perceptive images and personal wraps. A field of weeds became "soldiers standing in the cold." A required history report on the great Confederate General Robert E. Lee ignored his strategic achievements and political impact, and focused instead on his sadness at never knowing his colorful father, Light Horse Harry Lee.
It didn't matter to the little sparkplug Jon that his tricks and jokes were quite imperfect. He was thrilled to his soul at the mere thought of performing before a group, whether his audience clapped or groaned.
Brian, who exhibited a brilliant mind, was enthralled by his own helter-skelter side explorations into the nature of the universe. He skirted most discipline, especially the valuable discipline of honing his prodigious talents for future academic or vocational achievement. He suffered no qualms about writing poetry during math class or solving math puzzles in language arts.
Lynn lived on the perimeter of groups. Not particularly liked or disliked; accepted but not included. Incessantly, she observed and probed her fellows' pleasures and disappointments from behind deep eyes and sweet, knowing smile, all the while creating her own mental Never-Never Land of everyday fun with imaginary friends.
See what I mean. You've met kids like that ... elves: often underachieving; short attention span, or so it seemed to us; occasionally distant in their thoughts ... daydreamers; yet on the whole, sweet, sensitive, sometimes disarmingly deep or precocious; and when you focused closely, you found, although you may not have faced up to it, that every one exuded a magical aura. You really liked them, even if you were afraid to hold them too close because of their other-worldly edge.
What's interesting is that most elves you're likely to notice are children. That's because we never view anyone in our adult world as a bystander. In our adult world we reap the rewards of our efforts. We may be winners; we may be losers, but we're in the game whether we play or not.
We leave no place for elves in our adult world.
And with such remarkable progress being made in the fields of genetics, physical development, pharmacology, surgery, standardized school testing and educational methodology, virtual experiences, and enlightened parenting, elves will soon be rare, lonely anachronisms in the world of children. How sad for the elves. How sad for us. Living does seem more significant when existence has more than one dimension.
Besides, there's the chilling suppressed sense many of us harbor that a strain of elfin genes might be simmering deep in our own psyches like a dormant volcano.
or go to
An Explanation; Being Things; Childhood; Heroes; The Inner Spirit;
Elves I Have Known
Other Essays at Large: Movie Classics; Class of the Millennium;
My Book Reviews; My Stories
From Dorothy's Corner: For Dorothy
Comments: GKEARNS@prodigy.net