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| This pensive fox and his traveling wardrobe are the work, I am told, of Russian illustrator Nalogina Lubov who works under the name The Takiyaje Dolls. My thanks to Under the Blanket for information and links. |
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There is no explanation. Sometimes
squirrelly comes over me like beach fog. Suddenly every imagined twinge is sinister - was THAT here before? - every possible malformation expands beneath probing fingers and I am off and running on adrenalin fueled by the unknown. Which creates a problem, since all that is is mostly unknown. I don't consider these episodes magical, more like Robert Mitchum arriving in town fresh out of prison to stalk and terrorize Gregory Peck and family in (the original) CAPE FEAR. The mind as tormentor of self. I'm sure there are clinical names for this, pathological descriptions. It seems to be part of the human condition and its arrival cannot be foretold. The extent to which we let the squirrels run the show (and no offense to squirrels, who are blameless) determines where we stand in the big field. Are we fairly close in to where people are gathered, participating and keeping the threads together or are we out of shouting range, barely able to distinguish and probably misinterpreting arm signals in the dwindling light?
So - that happens. I am not entirely clear about whether what lightens our hearts, soothes our jitters and quiets our doubts is the product of events best described as "in spite of" or "because of" for it feels like a combination of the two. In my mind the game of Old Maid had a tightrope walking character, which is probably faulty memory. Like
MAN ON WIRE , she navigated the empty space between tangible points.
In spite of suffering, loss, fear, bad news, in spite of everything, there are handmade foxes in white undershorts, the existence of which can sweep away the ashes. And because our separate and collective ineffability joins us like Legos, we rise and for a moment or longer know only that we
are the gift we bring.
