{"id":365,"date":"2026-04-13T18:29:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/?p=365"},"modified":"2026-04-13T18:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:34:09","slug":"living-in-the-land-of-mistycal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/?p=365","title":{"rendered":"Living in the Land of Mistycal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Image: A visualization of mine and my kids’ fantasy world – Mistycal. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just finished a marathon of Evie Woods books<\/a> The Story Collector, The Lost Bookshop, and The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris. I really enjoy her books. I believe I have one more to go and she has one forthcoming. They’re a light read about how folklore, memory, and history aren’t just abstract ideas; they are physically embedded in the world we walk in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a lot of focus in her writing on how the landscape holds onto stories. It immediately made me think of Iceland, and those amazing stories of construction crews literally rerouting modern highways because the locals refuse to let them bulldoze a rock that belongs to the elves<\/a>. To an outsider, it probably sounds like a quirky almost nonsensical fairy tale, but it\u2019s actually this profound respect for the land. They may not actually believe elves live their, but it doesn’t matter. It’s about the tradition. When a place holds a story, it becomes sacred. You don’t pave over it, you do your best to protect it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading about that deep connection to the landscape brought me right back to the early days of COVID with my kids. We had just moved back from Montreal a few months earlier. It was my son’s first birthday when all the closure announcements were made. Stores, schools, libraries, everything – closed. Thankfully I was working a very flexible job that allowed me to turn my attention to my 1 and 4 year olds. I looked at what was ahead, and thought we had better get settled into a routine or we’ll all go crazy. I went from a senior research associate to a daycare leader overnight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole world suddenly shrank down to just our street. To cope with it, we sang songs, did a million crafts, coloured, danced, did science experiments, and we went on walks. We went on so many walks<\/span><\/em>. In doing so, we ended up creating an entire fantasy kingdom inside of our neighbourhood. We called it Mistycal (we lived on Misty St.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We mapped out the whole thing. The little walkway along the back of the houses, lined with those red dogwood branches, became the Fairy Path and we would leave fairy bread out to gain favour with the fairies. The slightly darker, tree-covered trail was the Dragon Path that we had to approach with our sticks raised in the air, in case we were attacked by the ferocious beast. The neighbourhood roundabout by the big houses turned into the Queens Circle, where we had to act most proper or be sent to prison, and the local park was christened Pirate Bay, where the sand was filled with crocodiles. We found a heart-shaped rock deep in the woods that we named Hearts Rest where we sat to cuddle, and the bridge leading into those trees became the Troll Bridge (luckily he only came out at night).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It probably looked like just a game to anyone else walking by, but for that anxiety-inducing pocket of time, that map was our entire reality, and for me a sense of safety for my kids. We knew the lore of every tree, rock, and pathway. Reading these books by Evie Woods made me realize I completely understand those people in Iceland now. We loved that little neighbourhood kingdom so fiercely. If someone had tried to cut down the Dragon Path or pave over Hearts Rest, we would have absolutely rioted. We would have done anything to protect it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we had our inside kingdom, too. I worked tirelessly to make a magical place for my kids. The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris<\/em> reminded me that the lore of a place doesn’t stop at the front door. That book is completely drenched in the sensory magic of food – the smell of fresh bread and the way a kitchen can ground you when the rest of the world feels untethered (my kitchen certainly did during COVID).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It made me look at the “Castle” on our hand-drawn map, which was our actual house. While the Dragon Path and Hearts Rest gave us an outdoor world to explore, the kitchen inside our castle was the beating heart. Just like the bakery in the book, our kitchen became our sanctuary from it all. I stood at the sink and counter for countless hours, looking out into the mess and joy of my children as I washed paintbrushes, baked, prepared our meals, sang songs, and more. Standing at the sink was its own kind of protective spell, it was how I built safety when everything outside the borders of our map felt so scary and uncertain. It’s where I could observe our life and feel love, pride, and safety, all at once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the specific kind of magic Evie Woods captures perfectly. When we weave our own stories, love, and comfort into the spaces around us…whether it’s the woods behind the house or the kitchen counter…it stops just being dirt, pavement, and drywall. It becomes ours, and it becomes something worth protecting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is exactly why our environment and our homes are such critical indicators of our overall well-being. We spend so much time talking about physical or financial health, but the spaces we inhabit are the foundation of everything else. When the world outside feels chaotic or overwhelming, a familiar path in the woods or the warmth of a kitchen gives our nervous system permission to finally rest. It lowers our baseline stress. Ultimately, finding magic in our surroundings isn’t just about escapism; it is about creating psychological safety. When we feel rooted in our environment, we feel safe. And having that kind of sanctuary is what gives us the foundation we need to actually thrive, rather than just survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reminds me of the work of Christopher Alexander<\/a>, the architect who wrote so beautifully about the psychology of spaces and “the Quality Without a Name” that he used to describe spaces that just feel inherently right, comfortable, and alive. He understood that a home isn’t just a container, it\u2019s a living pattern of human experiences. This is the true invisible architecture of a home: the fairy paths and bread, and the light we let in. This all works together to build a place where we finally feel completely and safely ourselves. They said the safer a kid feels at the home, the weirder they’ll act … so … I think my kids feel very safe. Little weirdos. <3 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image: A visualization of mine and my kids’ fantasy world – Mistycal. I just finished a … Living in the Land of Mistycal<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflections","category-well-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376,"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kishlinden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}