Happy Mother's Day

Once upon a time there was a little green caterpillar. She was a perfectly nice caterpillar, but she couldn’t help feeling she didn’t want to be a caterpillar forever. She was tired of spending all day crawling along the ground, taking forever to get anywhere. She wanted more.

Thankfully, the little green caterpillar had a mother. Her mother told her there was a reason she wanted more—that she was made for more. She showed her daughter exactly what to do to grow into the creation she was meant to be.

The little green caterpillar followed her mother’s instructions. She prepared carefully, then wrapped herself bravely in a cocoon. And just as her mother had predicted, the little green caterpillar emerged as a new creature. She was now a beautiful yellow butterfly, and she soared everywhere she wanted to go.

Happy Mother’s Day, and thank you to my mom, who taught me to spread my wings and fly.

Of Wardrobes and Magic

I took this picture because the statue reminded me of my favorite childhood story. You might think I mean Peter Cottontail or The Velveteen Rabbit or The Runaway Bunny, but no. I’m talking about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

If you’ve read the book (or seen the movie, for that matter, though people who watch instead of read make me sad) you remember what the White Witch did to her enemies. She turned them to stone with one wave of her magic wand. I always thought it was a horrible fate—left frozen to be aware time was passing, but not able to join in. I’d have felt better if she’d just killed people.

The moment I saw this statue, I thought he looked like one of the White Witch’s victims. I don’t actually remember if there were any rabbits discussed among her statues, but I suppose my thinking first of Narnia says more about what the book meant to me than it does about this statue’s resemblance to any particular character. Narnia was one of the most important parts of my childhood.

I was seven when I first read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was 37 when I last read it—it’s one of those stories I have to pull out and revisit from time to time. I imagine anyone who attaches a particular significance to books and literature probably first developed that love during childhood. I would guess we each have a particular story we can point to as the one that first showed us what a magical world books could be.

I remember one of my favorite games in the years after I first visited Narnia. I would go into my closet and shut the door—and how I wished for an actual wardrobe! I spent a minute in there, stumbling around and pretending I couldn’t find the back. When I came out, I pretended I was in the magical land of Narnia, where animals could talk (though my hamster never managed the trick) and danger lurked everywhere.

The magic doesn’t end with childhood books, of course. I still sink into magical worlds, especially if Stephen King or Jasper Fforde is writing them. Nothing matches the wonder of the first time, though—because it was a new experience, because a seven-year-old is more prone to believing in magic. Narnia has earned a forever spot in my heart. It’s what I always think of when I feel surrounded by wonder and have a sense of the world as a thin curtain. And really, the story is a perfect analogy of the magic of reading. You open a book cover instead of a wardrobe door, but you still find a new and exciting world on the other side.

So forgive me if every stone statue makes me feel sorry for the White Witch’s victims and every closed door seems to be an invitation to discovery. I can’t help but see magic in the world—I’m a reader.

All the Ways to See a Tree

This photograph has been more divisive than any other I've taken.

I love it. I can’t look at it without giggling a little, or at least smiling. I see a big-time opera singer, or maybe just a wannabe, puffed up and singing his heart out. He thinks of himself as Pavarotti and wants everyone else to think of him that way, too. It reminds me of the silliness of life.

My son says the picture scares him. He sees someone screaming in terror as an axe murderer bursts into the room. He can’t figure out how I see it as a happy picture, because to him, it’s horrifying.

My husband says the photo reminds him of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Rather than finding it scary, though, I think he’s a bit offended by it. It takes something that should be realistic—a tree—and turns it into something it was never meant to be.

In this strange little photograph, I see a picture of the reasons it’s so hard for people to get along with each other. If three people can look at the same image and see three completely different things, how could we help but clash over bigger, less well-defined issues?

Each of us can only see an issue from the perspective we bring to it. I have always loved fantasy and magic and happy endings, so that’s what I see. My son likes his fantasy a bit darker, so that’s what he sees. My husband prefers realism, so the whole idea of this picture bothers him.

However.

Even though I will never see this tree screaming, I can understand and accept and appreciate that my son does. Even though I’d hate for all my fiction to be about things that could have happened, I can understand and accept and appreciate that my husband prefers it that way.

This is how humans get along with each other. This is how it’s possible to form connections and relationships and communities. We have to be able to understand and accept and appreciate that other people see things differently, and that’s ok.

The internet has made it too easy for each of us to seek out others who believe the same things we do. We band together in little groups and mock those who think differently. We moan about how horrible life will be if  people with different beliefs get their way. We strengthen our positions by finding others who approve of them. We create a feeling of belonging even while the distances between groups grow from cracks to canyons.

The results are fear and hatred, division and a splintering country.

It makes me sad to get on Facebook most days. It doesn’t matter what the current hot button issue is—I’ll inevitably see half my friends spewing hatred disguised as sarcasm from one side, while the other half does the same from their own perspective. I want to say, “Look, this isn’t helping, just stop,” but I know that either side would only see that as support for the opposition.

It’s probably too late to say we should all just get along. But then, what’s our other alternative? 

How To Shoot an Armadillo

You might think this is a picture of an armadillo. You’re wrong. This is a picture of determination.

Or desperation. It could be that.

I took this photograph beside a trail I walk a few times a week. The past two months, I’ve seen armadillos out there almost every time I go. That is, every time except when I bring my camera.

At first it was funny. I’d tell my husband, “The armadillos are shy. They hide when they see the camera.” But after two months of that it started to seem less funny and more strange. Surely they couldn’t know when I had the camera. It had to be a coincidence—except how could it be when it happened every single time?

I started trying to trick them. I’d bring the camera but wear it slung around behind me, trying to forget about it. No luck. I’d bring the camera but stick it in a bag so they wouldn’t know what it was. They were smarter than that. I’d get frustrated and give up and go walking without the camera. Then there were armadillos everywhere, prancing right beside the path, silently laughing at me.

I started to think about shooting them with something more lethal than a camera.

Psychologists call this magical thinking—the idea that our thoughts or actions control things they couldn’t possibly control. I tried to remember I was giving the armadillos way too much credit, that this was coincidence, but as time went on it got harder to believe.

Finally, yesterday, I determined I was going to shoot an armadillo no matter what. I took my camera, and I walked the path slowly. I didn’t see any armadillos, but going slowly I could hear one snuffling through the undergrowth back off the path. It was time to hunt him down.

I’d tried tracking one into the woods before and only succeeded in scaring him away, so I decided to be sneakier this time. I found a downed tree near where I heard him, so I scaled my way along the trunk, arms out for balance, wishing I’d stayed in gymnastics longer. It worked, though. I wasn’t crackling any leaves, and I snuck up on the cheeky bugger before he knew it.

Snap! Click! Whatever you call the noise a camera makes, it was louder than I’d expected. It alerted the armadillo to my presence. He sat up, I grabbed a couple more quick shots, and he jumped straight in the air before zooming off like a cartoon character. He looked so funny it startled me into falling from the tree trunk, scaring a lizard that had been at my feet. I hurried back to the trail before he could try to sell me car insurance.

But I was triumphant! The picture you see is my trophy, a near-perfect shot of an awfully weird-looking critter. That photograph is the proof of my determination.

Or my desperation. I’ll leave that determination up to you.