By Misty Benson

Morbidly Adorable Mementos

The older I get, the stranger I will become. This is not a goal nor a guarantee, but rather an inevitable fact of fine faery living.

My name is Misty Benson (aka. gossamerfaery). I live, breathe, and bring my Morbidly Adorable Creations into being from Gossamerfaery's Attic in curiouser and curiouser Idaho. From the Attic, the creations and I can smell the sugary scent of coffin cake on the winds. The rustle of leaves sounds like hollow bones rattling on pavement. Rain is actually skeletons tap dancing on the roof. Here we vehemently hold onto the ghosts in our dreams. Faeries may be spotted in the dying light. We are not afraid to muddy our white dresses in order to witness the mysterious lives of bugs. Halloween is our favorite time of year, so we spend Christmas decorating our tree with skulls. This is a place where beauty borders on strange and the strange is beautiful.

In my column I want to explore the beautiful building blocks that compose a person's life. A Morbidly Adorable may refer to someone who walks through life feeling a little haunted but always enchanted; it may be a fragment from one's life that evokes memories of sweet mischief; or even just as it sounds - a Morbidly Adorable might be the furriest little critter with the most morbidly obese eyes you've ever seen. You get to decide what your Morbidly Adorable looks like and how you will nurture it. While the word memento may have several meanings, in more recent times it is primarily defined as a keepsake or souvenir that conjures memories from one's past. The romantic in me loves that Mementos also refer to two prayers in the Roman Catholic Mass, one for persons living and the other for persons dead. With a complete love of all my minions both living and dead, it is quite fitting. Whether it is a physical object, a person, a daydream, a color, a tear, a story, or a memory, they are all Morbidly Adorable Mementos. I hope this journey through my dreamy little world will help feed the Morbidly Adorable muse in all of us.

I, Misty*, gossamerfaery, your skull-loving, slightly unhinged, sweetly spooky artist, love all of my Morbidly Adorable children. Take my hand. Come in and play. Just make sure you leave all rational thoughts at the door.

Misty has been a member of Enchanted Folk since January 2009

members.enchantedfolk.com/gossamerfaery