I've been reading Emily Dickinson who I never read before because she seemed cryptic but there's a show about her that made her modern and then if you go back and look at the actual person. Wow. She's deeply funny.
She makes the small things important.
I was thinking about the tiny glass animals I had as a kid, this is something Emily would like she told me to tell you guys. They weren't glass they were painted ceramic I think but very tiny figures like the tip of your pinkies and sold on their little individual islands squares, glued on to one inch beige cardstock with fancy ink pen prices on the very corners. I must have been under ten, and there were homey stores on Montana Blvd in Santa Monica which is now like Beverly Hills but in the early 70's it was a gentle beach town, and my mom was getting Chinese Food at Ah Fong's and next door was this little store how did they stay in business but there was a wooden rack of these animals and I carefully breathed in all of these treasures.
Here's why I loved them. You could make them into families. There was a mom cat and there were a few tiny kittens on separate papers. There were frogs I never liked and horses and yellow ducklings and each one was delicate and looked real just miniature. You could feel the scruffy chin of the tiny white dog, with his ant-sized tongue hanging out.
My mom would let me get one every now and then, and I had a small collection and here's where I spent all my time. I would take the animals scooped up and go under the dining room table where there was a central leg with big fat branches holding up the table but it was a thick tree of carved wood, and flat U shapes so there were places I could put the animals in the tree. I would lie there and make up my world, moving the animals where they needed to visit and having them talk and this wasn't just to kill time this was because this was the world.
You know how much power you have when you are eight. As Emily said, the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, the power is in the middle because it is the only one that matters.
At eight the carpet is your lake, you float on your back resting, the sky is your painting and the table is full of life.
The later world confuses you draws you forward tugging you to leave that quiet wonderland because look your legs got longer you should use those and there really are so many other things maybe things are better where all the other kids are going so you leave your animals
then the cyclone whirls you away, decades go by, jobs that are yours, tricycles that aren't yours, life grabs you up by the throat and confuses you saying look at this shiny thing but it isn't very interesting like the red sticker for your car renewal which I guess is kind of fun you can peel it and you paid for it so you feel like it is a sort of winning but in your heart you know these seem faded and tattered prizes and Emily says yes CAN YOU SEE IT and I can see I am following her where she is looking at a light shining down the worn path down the ancient childhood oriental rug that is still here to the spot under the table where there is no time and there's nobody down there but what your spirit tells you is there and those animals are your friends and they always want to be where you are and and they still want to play.
sure maybe my mom fucked up later like Emily's dad fucked up by being too strict, but when I was 8 she held my hand in that little store and I wanted them all and sometimes she would say let's get this one
and pretty soon Emily never left the house at all except to wander in nature and let her hand brush the tops of all flowers glowing silently in sunset
little things are the path to great imagination
I'm not anywhere all that imaginating hasn't brought me hundreds of dollars or fame in fact you won't see it anywhere but you can see it
in my kids on my stockings in my heart in my smile in my yearning in my fingers
I'm still under the table
(grateful, to my parents)
Why can't this matter
she keeps saying
says Emily
