"The Fillyjonk who believed in Disasters" is a chapter from the book Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson. I have loved this short story for many years, from when I first read it in a children's literature course in college. After reading it again this morning, I just sat there, breathing and smiling deeply, knowing everything is truly fine.
The story is many pages long, here are some of the highlights...
"Don't you pretend. I know how things are. Everything's always peaceful like this just before a disaster.....Something or other had to happen. She knew it. Somewhere below the horizon something black and terrible was lurking-working larger, drawing nearer- faster and faster.....One doesn't even know what it is, the fillyjonk whispered to herself.....This calm is unnatural. It means something terrible is going to happen.....we are so very small and insignificant, and so are our tea cakes and carpets and all those things, you know, and still they're so important, but always they're threatened by mercilessness.....Those storms of her own were the worst ones. And deep down in her heart the fillyjonk was just a little proud of her disasters that belonged to no one else.
In the middle of the drawing-room stood the fillyjonk herself, dazed and wild in her fluttering skirt, thinking confusedly: this is it. Now comes the end. At last. Now I don't have to wait anymore.....It didn't look like her own special tornado, which was a gleaming black pillar of water. This was the real thing. It was luminous.
The fillyjonk was unable to move. She was standing quite still, and thinking: Oh, my beautiful, wonderful disaster.....The fillyjonk drew a deep breath. Now I'll never be afraid again, she said to herself. Now I'm free. Now I can do anything."
I have often been a fillyjonk, worrying, dreading, fearing. This "letting go" and "being" that I have begun practicing, can be very uncomfortable, but I am breathing deeper, smiling more, and aiming for wide-open. Who knows what "beautiful disaster" may come?
