Sugar Palm Island

⏱ ~5 min reading

Somewhere in the great, great sea, far, far beyond the horizon, where the sky turns pink, and the stars fall into the water in the evenings and melt like candies in tea, there is one special island. Ordinary sailors cannot find it. It is not on the maps. But it is there. Only you can get there only in a dream.

This is an island of sugar palms.

When you swim to it in a sleepy cloud boat, the first thing you see is its shores. Instead of sand there is fine, fine sugar dust. White, with a pinkish tinge. If you step on it with your bare foot, it is gentle, warm, tickling your fingers. And if you lick your finger, it is sweet, with the taste of ripe berries.

Further from the shore begins a palm grove. Only the palm trees there are not ordinary. Their trunks are like large mint sticks, with white and green stripes. Instead of leaves at the top are sweet ribbons. Raspberry, lemon, orange, with a hint of vanilla. They sway slowly in the warm breeze - and rustle not like real leaves, but like candy wrappers rustle when you unwrap them.

And instead of fruits, caramels grow on palm trees. Large, transparent, like amber. Inside each one you can see a small star. If such a caramel falls into your hand, it is warm. And when you taste it, the taste of the sea and the sun remains in your mouth.

The ocean around the island is lemonade. Yes, yes, real, with bubbles. It is bright yellow during the day and pale pink at night. Small clouds-boats made of white marshmallow float on it - you can sit on them, swim wherever you want, and they obediently carry you on the wave.

Birds fly over the island. Their feathers are made of petals. Some are made of rose petals, some of chamomile petals, some of lily of the valley petals. When they fly by, a faint floral scent remains in the air. The birds sing with bells - delicately, gently, like a real musical necklace.

The island is large, it has everything a little dreamer dreamed of seeing. There is a quiet bay in which caramel fish swim. There is a honey hill from which a cool linden stream flows. There is a garden where bushes with multi-colored marmalade grow instead of berries. There is a swing made of vanilla cotton candy that swings by itself.

But most importantly: on this island there are no adults and no children. On this island, everyone is a child. Because when you get there, you return to the most tender thing in a person - to a child's ability to wonder.

Who can get there? Oh, not everyone. It's a special island, it has its own rules. Only those children who have dreamed all day come there. They didn't fuss over trifles, they didn't fight, but they dreamed - about dolphins, about great journeys, about warm countries, about magical flowers, about friends waiting in distant cities.

If you've had a little good dream in your head all day, then at night, when you get into bed, put your head on the pillow, and close your eyes, you can get there. But you have to do something before you go to bed. It's very simple.

You need to think about something sweet. Not about candy. But about something that makes your heart sweet. About your mother who kisses you on the forehead. About the kitten who purrs on your lap. About a warm blanket that smells like home. About a friend with whom you laughed together.

If you have even one such warm thought in your heart, you carefully close your eyes - and immediately find yourself in a small cloud-boat. And the cloud carries you through the night sky. Past the moon. Past the stars. All the way to the island itself.

There you can walk. You can eat caramels from palm trees - they don't rot your teeth, because they are magical. You can swing on a cotton swing. You can ride a cloud-boat across the lemonade ocean. You can play with petal birds - they sit on your palm and are not afraid.

And in the morning you wake up in your bed. In a regular room. Everything as usual. But there is one sign - a sure sign that you have been on the island. There is a faint, faint sweet taste in your mouth. As if you had just eaten vanilla caramel, although, of course, you had not eaten anything.

It's not a coincidence. It's a little souvenir. The island of sugar palms sends you home with a gift - so that you can remember it all day and know: this is not a dream. It really happened. And there will be more.

Adults, unfortunately, have long forgotten that island. They have become serious, hasty, they have a lot to do. Before going to bed they think about work, about bills, about tomorrow's meetings. The cloud-shuttle does not fly to them - because it has nothing to bring. There is no sweet thought in their hearts.

But it also happens like this: sometimes an adult - mom, dad, grandma - suddenly sits down on the rug with their child, picks up a book with fairy tales, starts reading - and his eyes become different. Soft. Childish. He knows how to be surprised again. And then at night a cloud-boat flies to him too. Quietly, carefully, because he is afraid of scaring him. And he takes him to the island. And mom wakes up in the morning and says:

— And I had such a strange dream. It was like I was on an island with palm trees made of candy...

And the child smiles. Because he knows. It's not a dream. It's true.

The invitation to the island of sugar palms is open. It is always open. You don't need a ticket, a ship, or a map. All you need to do is lie down comfortably in your bed, close your eyes, and think about something very, very good. And the cloud will come.

It always comes to those who know how to dream.