The Animal Cracker Oracle

You find yourself in your childhood kitchen, looking for something to snack on in the late afternoon. No one else is at home, and you’re rummaging through drawers and cupboards to see if there’s something you’re in the mood for right now. There are more options in these cupboards than you remember, loads of salty and sweet and savory snacks to choose from. But you kind of feel like something nostalgic, something that reminds you of your childhood itself.

In the back of one of the cupboards, you find a package of animal crackers. You remember marching the animal shapes across the table as a kid, biting off a zebra-looking cookie’s head, taking your time conducting your circus while having your snack time. Shrugging, you pick up the packet. You can’t really explain it, but you know that this is the choice you were looking for all along. There’s something important in it for you right here, right now.

You’re wondering which animal shape will be first to be devoured when you notice a small bit of sugar on the side of the packaging. It looks slightly…pink? As you hold the bag up for a closer look, carnival music blasts out of nowhere. Around you, the air turns into a sweet-smelling candy cloud. The top seam of the bag rips open to reveal the spirit of an ancient animal cracker materializing before you in a spray of powdered sugar and rainbow sprinkles.

You have found The Animal Cracker oracle, and it has a story to share with you today.

The Animal Cracker oracle says:

The younger versions of you still have your number, and they’re calling to see if you’ll come out and play. They’re tired of the overly practical, the oh-so-ordinary, the settled-for and the good enough. They say you need more whimsy. More imagining. More silliness. More delight.

And your kid self knows exactly where to find it. They know where the spark is for you, the one that makes the whole world technicolor - when you may not have even realized it had gotten a little grey. You don’t deserve grey, they say. You deserve rainbows and sunshine and lollipops and hearts and stars and clovers and blue moons and lucky pennies and that same feeling you got from watching cartoons over your favorite morning cereal.

Yes, metaphorically. Also literally. When you were younger, what did you love in this world? What things have you dug your feet into over the course of your life just because they lit you up? Things you loved of your own accord - not the things you were told to love or that others said were appropriate or that you got talked into. We’re leaving that behind, right here at this powdered sugar doorway.

Child you wants treats shaped like wild animals, and they don’t want them plain and dry and beige. They want them coated in a healthy dose of pink icing and colorful sprinkles and as much sugar-spun magic as one small cookie cracker can possibly contain. They want that feeling for you, and for them, in every part of life possible.

Younger you is creeping into your thoughts and habits and dreams asking you to pay attention to it all again now, at this big age. Maybe you’ve even heard them calling, felt the pang of nostalgia, and then pushed it away so you could do more adulting.

But younger you wants you to run your fingers through wind chimes and beaded curtains with them. They want to paint in bold, bright colors and make fun noises and poke at bugs and talk to birds. They want to wear shoe charms and purchase eight different notebooks for no other reason than because they bring you joy.

You know what? Those younger versions of you want the things you were never allowed growing up: the pink dream house, the light up shoes, the trip to the Space Center, the figurines - whatever it was for you. Sweets and amusements and curiosities that you haven’t even thought about in ages. They want you to take some of your adult money, your adult freedom, your adult privileges, and get it for you both. If it seems childish and frivolous - good! You are doing it right. And it will mean so much more to you than you can even know.

Because beyond the sugar rush and the dopamine fix, there is a remembering there for you. Strong reminders of who the eff you are and what you have always valued in this life. There is the kind of return to self that you only discover when you act like a younger you again - and the more incomprehensibly, nonsensically, and wantonly so, the better. You’re never too old for little you. In fact, they think you are cool as hell.

Your younger selves want to call some of the shots for you right now, so let them make some real-life decisions. Let them dress you. Let them pick out groceries. Let them pay a bill in glitter ink. Act like they’re staying with you for the season and you’re just having the best time together. They will say yes to things you’ve been saying no to. They will say no to things you’ve been saying yes to.

What they choose doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else at all. It doesn’t even have to make sense to adult you right away. They will deeply surprise you, and restore you, and have you laughing through tears at all of the important things you’d somehow forgotten.

The versions of you before all the heartache and the jading and the dulling and the expectations and the pressures you had to take on over the years - they know exactly where your pure delight can still be found.

They know the way. They always did. Let them take your hand and show you.

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About the Artist
Bailey Lewis is an experiential storytelling artist (MFA, University of South Carolina) who combines words, images, and reimagined materials to create intuitive story experiences. Her art has been exhibited and published internationally, and she is the author of award-winning stories which have been featured in The Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. 

Visit the Bailey Sends Word Story Studio site for more about Bailey’s work.