Jo

This is just one chapter of my story titled Herb & Opal, after which this blog is named! In it, we meet Jo: a 12 year-old girl who sees the magic in everything, even though she lives in our world. She is inspired by my own little sister Josie, whose gentle, yet unconforming nature inspires me to approach the world with fearless kindness. Although the character and real girl do have many different qualities, tenderness underlines each move they both make.

Jo saw magic everywhere. Not the kind that made things fly or see through walls or transform things, or even the kind that the sprites and gremlites of Willow Farm possessed, oh no–Jo saw the magic of our world. 

She heard the song of each vein of the leaves that dressed thick oak trees. The tenor harmonies of birdsong floated lazily to her ears, and low basslines of powerful thunder rumbled along through her chest. Each step onto fresh grass sent a renewed sliver of life from her little toes to the top of her head, and she gasped with the gentle bite of her family’s quiet pond. Each patch of moss and filtered sunlight cried their song out to her, and she sang back–quite literally. She hummed the tunes she felt matched with each scene.

She loved her world, and it loved her back.

She loved it with a gentle, unhurried love of science and nature and any other thing that could have contributed to this beautiful existence.

She made her own magic, and it made her right back–made her kind, made her strong, made her smart. Most importantly, it made her loving.

But where she found that nature was not so kind, was when it came to other creations like her. Other humans.

She found that most other 12 year-olds didn’t have the same easy-going nature that she did, and even went so far as to mock her love of science and nature. They made fun of her hair, which Mom had finally let her color blue. They called her “Dreaming Jo” and said her head was in the clouds. Honestly, she didn’t mind her nickname, though the kids spat it at her like an insult. She thought it had a rather fun feeling to it, and imagined herself floating through the sky, her hair matching its color, landing on clouds, talking to the moon.

And that was just the thing about Jo. She saw the magic even in the mockery.

Sometimes, though, in the moments just before bed, while reading her National Geographic, she would imagine what it might be like if the popular girls saw what she saw in nature. Rather than wishing herself into their designer shoes, she imagined them without shoes, like Jo was whenever she could be. 

On this particular night, she flipped to a page about Weeping Willow trees. She pictured in her mind all of them running through the woods alongside her, flying with the joy that radiated from the trees’ roots as they stood strong and somber. They could swing on the low-hanging branches into crystal rivers, and dance circles around its trunk. She imagined her family’s Golden Retriever, Simon, running along with them too, matching their energy with each playful nip and prance. And when they were tired out, they’d all collapse into fields of Baby’s Breath and Buttercups and Larkspur, their smells intertwined with wafting whiffs of purple Lilac on the trees that grew nearby. 

Hiding behind that happy vision, though, was a bit of loneliness, and it added a slight minor key to the song of her daydreams. It was a wish that someone would join her, and see the beauty that she saw, rather than ignore and trample nature’s call.

It was a wish for a friend who really understood.