when i was a little girl living in macon i used to think that there were monsters living under my bed. my fear of them, fortunately, was short-lived. after about a week of not touching the floor around my bed at night it occured to me that if i sang to them they would be so charmed by my little girl voice that they would not be able to bring themselves to tear my throat out in the middle of the night. and, imagine this, it worked.

then, when i was eight years old our school had its first production of sleeping beauty. i had a crush on prince charming, and stayed up at night learning every word to every song so that when sleeping beauty got the flu on opening night i could jump up on stage and directly into prince charming's ten year old arms. for what must have been a month i would sit up in my bed and sing and sing "i know you i walked with you once upon a dream" until my little body couldn't take it anymore.

sometimes i wonder how much time i actually spent singing to myself in the dark. a decade and a half later i still have monsters under my bed, these less easily charmed. i would sing to them but they know the songs already, they jump in howling after the first note. i'm not so bold with prince charming either. if only you could stand in the middle of a forest sing to the squirrels and the man you love would tumble over himself returning love for you. as it is, i only sing to the squirrels when i could not possibly be overheard, by prince charming or the wicked witch or the post man or anyone else.

this doesn't always work though. today i was singing to the squirrels and there was a man quietly sitting in his parked car. that's pretty he said, and just as soon as he spoke the squirrels ran away and so did i.