Homecoming_Two.page

The Homecoming - part two

"Oh bother," said Pooh, "we will give them some honey, their probably just hungry anyway," as he reached up onto the top shelf for more honey. "Of course," finger tapping at the side of his head," we will have to find honey for them. I'm afraid I don't have enough for these people she speaks of." I glanced at all the jars of honey Pooh had in his little house and knew he could feed an army with all of his honey and smiled.
"No Tigger, it's not necessary for you to box their ears, nor for Pooh to feed them his honey," and looking to Piglet, "No, my little pink friend, they won't come to get you. They don't even believe you exist, that this place exists. They won't come here looking for me." I looked from Piglet, to Pooh and softly at my want-to-be champion Tigger and knew I was home again.
"We don't exist?" asked Piglet, his round eyes inquisitive. "How can we not exist Blue Eyes? I'm afraid I don't understand, I know I am standing here in Pooh's house, and I am talking with you all, so, I must exist." He voice filled with feigned conviction. "Right? I exist....don't I? Well, maybe I don't, maybe I am in my bed and this is all a dream. Yes, that must be it. I exist, but this is a dream." He nodded his head in recognition of his existence and I let him believe he was safe in his dream-world.
"Blue Eyes," Pooh said, "why do these people in your world live like that? Why do they do the things you've said? I know, if they ate more honey, they would be so much happier. If they just ate honey and played in the sun and counted butterflies, they would be much nicer to each other." Pooh walked over to his honey jars, caressed them and mumbled to himself, "Yes, honey and butterflies, oh and clouds and balloons, yes, balloons would make them happy too. If only they could count the butterflies and play and run and crawl up into the trees and reach the clouds, they would be much nicer to each other."
"Oh Pooh, I love you for your simplicity and Piglet, I love you for your timidity," I slowly said to them and taking them into my arms again, held them fast and tight.
"Ahem...ahem...hack, hack" Tigger coughed up a fur ball, Tiggers do that, you know and asked, "Blue Eyes, what do you love about me?"
"You my dear Tigger, you I love for your fearlessness, impulsive though it maybe sometimes." My eyes looked from one to the other and I quietly said," I love you all so very much. I don't know why I ever left here, why I ever left you behind, but I'm here now, for however long I can stay and we have so much to catch up on." I smiled brightly at my companions and as we did in my childhood, we all hugged each other and laughed.
We all agreed it was time to go in search of Christopher Robin and tell him my tale.To warn him that people didn't believe anymore, of childhood fancies and simple things in life, that the world outside the Wood was cruel and dark and foreboding.

We found Christopher Robin down on the bridge, playing with Eeyore and Roo, not that Eeyore really plays, he mostly frets about life and mopes around the Wood and grumbles. Roo was so excited to see me again and in his excitement ran home to tell Kanga I was there before I even had the chance to say hello. Roo can be so silly.
"Hello Blue Eyes," Christopher Robin said as he approached. He hadn't changed a bit, in fact no one ever changed that lived in the Wood. That was what I loved about this place, nothing and no one ever changed.
"Hello Christopher Robin," I sofly sighed his name. He had been my first true friend, as a child, and now I stood tall and towering over him. I knelt down to hold him in my arms in friendly greeting. "You look well Christopher Robin, I have missed you. I have missed the Hundred Acre Wood," glancing around the forest. "It is so good to be home again." I smiled. It seemed I kept saying that, over and over again, "good to be home again," like I had returned from a long journey, perhaps that was all this was. A returning home, to family and friends.
As Christopher Robin and I walked along the water's edge, I told him of the outside world, and the cruelty that lived beyond the forest. That mankind had ceased to believe in the Hundred Acre Wood, that man had made life complicated and difficult. That they hated the simplicity this forest represented to them and in doing so, the future of the Wood and all who lived here, was at stake.
"Is this why you came back to the Wood, Blue Eyes?" he asked, "To tell us about this, to warn us of what might become of us?" Christopher Robin sat in an old tire swing 'neath the great oak tree and spun around as he spoke. He seemed undisturbed by my tale, calm and child-like in his manner.
"I don't know why I am here Christopher Robin. I awoke in the forest this morning. I don't even know how I found my way here." My eyes scanned the Wood as I spoke.
From where I stood I could make out the burrow where Rabbit lived, and if I squinted just right I could see the tree that Owl called home. A loud sigh escaped my lips as I continued to speak, "Christopher Robin, how is that you never left this place? That you stayed here in the Wood and never ventured out into the world?" I sat on the ground and watched him spin in the swing.
"Oh, I left once and was gone for years and years, but I found that the more I lived out there, the less I remembered of this place. I became greedy and selfish. I ran and ran and never got anywhere." His toes dug into the dirt under his feet and spun him faster, until the rope that held the swing was in a bunch and then, he simply let go.

As I sat and watched the rope unwind above his head, I glanced down at his face and saw a most remarkable sight. His face seemed to glow with an unabashed abandon, he simply yielded himself to the enthusiasm of childish play.
I sat, stunned and silent as he played. I could faintly hear his chuckles as he spun round in that swing, my mind so lost in thought.
"It's coming back to you, isn't it?," he softly asked.
I looked up to find him standing next to where I sat, looking down at me with his big blue eyes, smiling gently. "Let it come back to you. Don't be afraid of it. Breathe it in, like the scent of a newly opened rose." At which time he brought forth his hand and held out a yellow rose, it's bud barely open to the sun.
"Is this why I am here Christopher Robin? To find my own child-like abandon again?
To find the simplicities in life that I left behind in my childhood?" Tears rolled down my cheeks, "To know the simply joys of play and to chase clouds and count butterflies, as Pooh said?"
"Yes, Blue Eyes, that is why you are here. That is what you require most in your life, to know and believe again. To find that wee small girl you once were and love her with all that is in you. To simply Be." He sat next to me and placed the rose in my hand, his arm around my shoulders, he continued on, " Unlike Eeyore who frets and Piglet who hesitates, or Tigger who is impulsive and Rabbit who calculates, or Owl who pontificates, what you need to learn most of all, is to be like Pooh...who just Is. To learn to value wisdom and contentment and simplicity."
I held that gift tightly in my grip and rose up off the ground as my friends all gathered round me. It was then that I saw where we were, in the middle of Galleons Lap. It truly is an enchanted forest and I remembered a passage from a little book by Benjamin Hoff that says about this Enchanted Place, " We can go there at anytime. It's not far away; it's not hard to find. Just take the path to Nothing, and go Nowhere until you reach it. Because the Enchanted Place is right where you are and if you are Friendly With Bears, you can find it."
It is good to be home again.