Filed under: belly-button gazing | Tags: debut, eyelet-lace, fuzzy-tailed, Suzy Snowflake
In grade one, I was a yellow, fuzzy-tailed Rabbit opposite a realistically tubby Pooh. I had to share the role with a kid named Ricky Shroeder, because not all kids were as talented as me and needed their own chance to shine. It was a smash success that built on the fame I had garnered for my debut, semi-professional, headliner performance in Miss Suzy Snowflake, the play school musical, two years earlier. (The costuming for this role was exquisite; precious-plastic, sparkle-snowflake ornaments hung by curtain hooks through the holes in a white, eyelet-lace dress…oh, the glamour…)
I always rather disliked Rabbit; bossy, picky, carrots all lined up in straight rows, critical of the fun-loving Tigger. (Now there was a guy who knew how to have a good time!) And I found Rabbit to be a bit on the mean side; frequent demands for moratoriums on bouncing and fun-having in general. Then there was the “let’s lose Tigger in the woods” fiasco. Well…needless to say, it didn’t break my heart when Karma kicked Rabbit in the ass, and he got lost in the fog, jumping at every toad-croak and owl-hoot.
The older I get, the more I see Rabbit coming out in me. I like order and quiet. If I had a garden, I’d want total control to make sure all the plants grew right. Bouncy people embarrass me in public. I’ve even tried to lose people in the woods, preferring solitude to having to compromise my leadership prerogative. (It all started when I was thirty and didn’t take the exit into Banff when I was headed west one long weekend. By the time I hit the coast at Whiterock, I was consumed by such a feeling of elation, I never wanted to return to my fenced in, cultivated existence. )
So…as I forge ahead on my path to self-discovery, I’ve been scared a bit lately by the toad-croaks and owl-hoots. The fog has closed in, somewhat, around me. I’m sure I’ve been through this part of the woods, before. If someone showed up to guide me out of the forest, I’d be so clingingly grateful, I’m sure I would embarrass even myself, a little.
I have been trying not to harass my friends at home, too much. What if I showed up for honey and condensed milk on bread, and, when I rang the doorbell, someone shouted out that nobody was there?
I guess that would be Karma, right?
