i’m just about fully up to snuff after a hilarity-infused weekend with some indescribable wackiness as i feted my 30th college reunion with a bevy of friends. still sore from laughing.
this morning i sketched this rabbit. i’m working on something really amazing, and the idea of memory encircled me. the more years i live, and of course, the reunion weekend was especially indicative of this new theory of mine, the more easily i can visualize the layers of time as simply the clustered barnacles on the underbelly of a great big ship.
a word, an object, an image, a song: each and every one can conjure up imagery that is blusteringly riddled with a potpourri of potential targets of memory. rabbit. that movie with james caan that i think was a book too naughty to be allowed to read. rabbit. easter chocolate bunny, sitting in the corner of my parents circa 60s living room biting the head off of even though forbidden to eat anything an hour before receiving communion in the imminent trip to sunday mass. rabbit. driving home from wisconsin with my mom in the 70s and pulling over impetuously to buy a pet that later, surely enraged by spending a life in a cage rather than a farm, learned to growl, quite menacingly, at me. rabbit. a schnazzy new vw car to rival and eventually replace, for a few generations, the lovable but death-trap bug.
see what i mean?
one word doth a thousand memories make. the longer i love, the more clustered and varied and thick becomes the labyrinth of the rolodex of my mind.
so, the original thought as i sat this morning to type? not a clue. my rabbit turned musing carried me far, far away to happy lands and easy days. as it should be, as is my mind, travel beyond just this moment as readily and enjoyably as a stroll down a hilly autumn woods.
m wood pen 