Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Stop and Smell the French Elephants

Whenever we reach this page in "Babar's Family," I involuntarily pause. "Mommy, talk!" Sonja prods, but the poetry in this depiction of leisure pulls at my heart. The entire book is comprised of little vignettes of familial harmony and joie de vivre, but this description is so vivid -- a sensual, physical and emotional portrait of the experience of living in a moment. "Sometimes Babar and Celeste go sailing," it says. "They love to glide silently over the cool water, pushed by the wind." Of course they do! What I wouldn't give for an experience like that! But in fact, my life is full of these moments -- they just need to be recognized. Because my view of life right now can be summed up by this little painting I made yesterday ("SONJA UP CLOSE"), I'm feeling pretty incapable of seeing past this admittedly adorable obstruction to the rest of the world. So that's my current project, and it might cause me to look a bit silly... for example, when I'm running and something catches my eye, I'm now inclined to go right over and, say, run my hands through the attractively sideways-blown tall grass, and then maybe even tear some off to smell before trotting back onto the road.

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