Stalking Cinderella

Sometimes Bermuda can be a bit lit a fairy tale world.  It certainly seems magical to the tourists, I should know, I was one once and found it so haunting that I made my way there to live.  It can scream Disney Princess with all the Christmas and New Year's Balls.  It can also be a little bit like Peter Pan's Neverland, where one can have a tendency to want to stay forever...and enjoy the youthfulness of living abroad, parties, boat trips, random celebrations, and not "growing up" for as long as possible.  But when you are working lots and doing the routine tasks of life -- cleaning, cooking, laundry -- you can lose sight of the fairy tale.

So I considered myself lucky to see one play out in front of me while sailing at Castle Harbour.  It went a little something like this:

Princess B was living happily ever before, not in a remote castle in Europe, but in the good old US of A.  Rather than flitting about like some of those more famous fairy tale princesses, Princess B was a modern day sort of princess -- you know, the kind that play sports, goes to College, and answers to Bianca instead of Pincess B.  Finding Prince Charming is the challenge of many modern day princesses...in fact, that particular legend is probably a very old geezer by now....but the prophecy has always been that he must have grandsons, or great grandsons out there.  One just has to find, or perchance be found, by one.

While Princess B was in College, she met a nice boy, with goldie blond hair and one of those smiles that twinkles when he smiles, just like in all the cartoons.  Ivan was not the grandson, or great grandson of Prince Charming, but he sure knew how to spot a Princess.  In fact, while the bloodline may not have been directly linked to royalty, there must have been some close connection to Prince Charming, the specifics of which have been lost in history.  How do I know this?  Because Ivan knew the secret of being of Prince is not in who your ancestors are, but in who you choose to be.

Prince Ivan had a job in insurance, or maybe it was re-insurance, and Ivan used this to come up with a plan.  You see, he also knew that a Princess who answers to Bianca will always BE a princess all on her own, but that every girl, even one who prefers to simply call herself Bianca, deserves to be treated like a Princess.  And so Prince Ivan crossed his fingers behind his back and told the lovely Bianca that his company was sending him on a mundane work related trip to Bermuda, and worse yet, that they wanted him to bring his girlfriend for the social dinner where the men would do business and the women would smile and, oh I don't know, talk about gardens and such...old school business dealings.  And so off they flew, in an ordinary plane, since all the magic carpets were booked, for a very short business trip to Bermuda.

Once there, Ivan again crossed his fingers and told Princess B that they had just enough time to meet some old friends and go for a quick swim.  They donned snorkels and masks and entered the jewel blue green waters below a real live castle on that little island that is the jewel of the Atlantic. 

They saw fish, and enjoyed the warmth of the summer sea, and after snorkelling a little way out, they spotted something in the sand below that clear blue sea.

"What is is?" Ivan asked, looking at a tiny treasure chest box that was very familiar to him indeed.  "Don't touch it," Princess B said, "it must belong to someone, surely they set it out and we shouldn't disturb it," she said.  "Let's just take a quick look," Prince Ivan said with a growing smile.  And so Princess B submerged again, and dove down to the shallow sea, where the tiny treasure box sat atop the white sand.  She reached out for it and slowly opened the lid, and was shocked to see the sun glinting back at her on the floor of the sea within the facets of a diamond.  A diamond ring.

"We have to put it back!" B said as she came to the surface.  "It's yours B," Ivan said smiling.  At first B didn't understand, she didn't understand any of it.  Until Prince Ivan spoke some very special words from his heart, and asked her to be his Princess for life.  She said yes...and that is the beginning of happily ever after.

As for me, and how I come in, I just happened to be floating nearby on the Sand Dollar, watching this all unfold.  We had a bit of a warning from one of the happy couple's friends, who swam out to tell us, which was a good idea because it wouldn't have been quite the fairy tale ending if we had snorkeled away with the treasure.  And so I decided to try my hand at being a paparazzi...hence the title of today's blog "Stalking Cinderella."  After she said yes, we sent our emails in a bottle to send them pictures of their fairy tale proposal in the beautiful Bermuda seas.  The moral of this story is....be the prince or princess you were meant to be,  treat others as such...and watch them shine like gold.

That was the fairy tale ending for the Bermuda days.  Now I am off to a new kingdom, to see what magic and adventure awaits me.  Sure hope it isn't full of trolls!