To explain the purpose of a stuffed white bunny in a greenlit clearing with "sorry" pinned to its chest, I've cut and pasted a previous post:
From the deceased estate of my daughter's father there are Icons - Buddha, Pavati, the cat queen, Kali (I kind of like her style), Leda, St Geraldine, Kwan Yin (she's been standing, holding her babe on the dash of my car for a long time now. With a four wheel drive you need a Goddess of mercy and compassion to guide you) ...
While moving house I've had to put all of these Icons into boxes and cart them somewhere else. There are also the things that mean so much to me but have no utilitarian or monetary value. I consider these things to be Icons too. An example:
A stuffed toy vaguely resembling a white rabbit sits upright with floppy ears and nylon, cobwebby fur. It's the kind of thing you find in op shops, in fact I think we did. One day when Pearlie and Stormboy were pre-teens, I'd had an apocalypticly premenstrual day on the lawnmowing round. All I wanted was half an hour alone in the bath. Just saying to kids that you want a moment alone in the bath is stupid anyway. Thinking you are actually going to get it is misguided in any expectations of single parenthood. Still, I lit the chip heater, paced around for half an hour waiting for hot water, poured a bath and sank into its depths.
Not long after that I heard screaming. Not fun screaming, real screaming.
I scrambled out of the bath and went into the kitchen where I found Stormboy lying on the floor covered in blood and Pearlie leaning over him. The knife was still in her hand. Stormboy groaned and lay still. Then I saw a little smirk as he writhed in pain and I thought, maybe even said out loud, you pair of little @#*!!
So, wet and naked, I stormed past the tomato sauce/blood and pathos theatre and went back to the bathroom, slammed the door shut and lay back in my fucking bath. Silence from the kitchen. I think they knew they'd pushed it a bit too far. Minutes later the bathroom door opened and a stuffed white rabbit was pushed through the doorway with a stick. Safety pinned to his chest was a piece of paper and on it was written, "Sorry".
An isolated apology?
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ReplyDeleteAaaaahhhh...now I get it. Sorry, I had forgoten about that post.
ReplyDeleteFunny how things can seem to change when you attach new meaning. Those images on their own were quite distressing and nearly had me fumbling for something to say, in an arm around the shoulder kind of way. (I'm a sucker for that, falling for the emotional intent..) That sense of feeling like some kind of reassurance was required has, with the postscript, transferred to an empathetic 'I sort of know what you mean'. I've had run-ins with my 15 year old son this week that remind me of the utter bewilderment and frustration of being that kid so many years ago, and now I'm the guy dishing out the 'grow up and start giving' lectures that my own father was never able to get through to me. Maybe that's the point? Who's saying sorry to who? Thing is, there is a melancholy 'Donnie Darko' -ness to this little post that, no matter which way you bend its emphasis, can't shake its primary qualities of isolation and aloneness. There's a solitary, lip biting emotion emitting from these pictures that remind me of a Johnny Cash version of someone else's cry for redemption.
ReplyDeleteOh absolutely Ciaran: in a Johnny Cash kinda way and also the "who's saying sorry to who?"
ReplyDeleteI've been travelling, so I quickly posted the pictures and then realised later how obscure (and possibly upsetting) they may appear without a context.
That bunny does make me smile and there was no way I was throwing it out. I've just been visiting my daughter Pearlie and her daughter Grace. I showed Pearlie the photographs and reminded her of the story (she'd forgotten the entire incident). She laughed hysterically but I think she also understand that that apology went both ways.
That's her nappy pin from when she was a babe, by the way. And the bunny is in the old vege garden at Kundip.
It's also kind of sweet too, when you look at it another way...
ReplyDeleteI thought it was Kundip..
By the way I'm working on a Taylor family document at the moment, a reworking of Mary's Candyup Diary. or a re-arrangement and commentary on it. Should be finished in a week or so. Biggest thing so far? Campbell had a girl friend, Mary Hanah Turner Cooper, 11 years his junior and way below his social standing. Mary and Patrick did not approve. I love that kind of shit. He was 32, she was 21. Up until I saw that I was beginning to think he was gay, having far too much fun going east with runaway sailors to be bothered with girls for heavens sake.. . (-:
I'm twice her age and still besotted with runaway sailors, Ciaran :)
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