i used to want to be a falcon. something predatory. and my friend, he was a wolf. it used to be a metaphor of sorts, me and my long distance relationship with the world, and he, nose to the ground... after all, i was naive and idealistic. still am.
i don't know what animal represents me nowadays. especially after a lot of the illusions of youth have faded, and i'm aging. i suppose wolves age gracefully. or other canines, like bears. they grow grizzled and long of tooth, and their age imparts a kind of earned wisdom. not too many other animals do that. i don't conceive of birds, particularly birds of prey, as aging gracefully. maybe after a while, they simply lose the ability to fly, and their lives end soon after.
i wish to be a purposeful, intelligent animal, whatever i am. something with wisdom. something that is still dangerous, and therefore relevant. i do not want to be harmless, toothless, clawless. somehow to be feared is to be respected is to be important is to be alive.
i somehow wish that sensuality were included in the package of being this aged animal. maybe it's possible, but the way society packages sensuality is that it is inextricably tied with youth. it's hard to conceive of it as a "beautiful thing" as we grow older. but maybe that's the point. when you're young, you cannot conceive of any other beauty besides that of youth, there's a myopia of sorts in that. but maybe when you're old, if you're not tied down by all of the false hangups of society, then you just sort of naturally morph into something or someone different, with different interests, and different perspectives, and different- appreciations.
i love my wife. it may not be the same as when we were younger, in terms of levels or degrees of intimacy, but it is strong nevertheless. i appreciate that i always have a partner to talk to, even in those dead hours of the night, when worries and dreams threaten to tear you apart. there's a surface to touch, to make you feel that the universe has a skin.
***
i think i would love to be a mountain: still, powerful. and in motion, i would love to be a river: relentless, flowing. if there were an animal that could contain that level of spirituality, and embrace both dualities of stability and dynamic action, then that is what i would want to be... but right now, i can't see it, can't conceive of, any single animal containing those qualities. it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic image that i have...
so, sorry, no animals that i can conceive of as relating to myself.
***
well, i guess i could talk about other animals.
we have a dog named musubi that i like to abuse. i don't quite understand why. it's not because, as my wife thinks, i am jealous (he follows my wife like a shadow, and my wife dotes on him). i suppose it's because i see a sneakiness within him... the fact that he jumps on the dining table when no one is around, and tries to eat our leftovers... the fact that he runs away any chance he gets, to spend time with his girlfriend across the street... i don't know why, but those acts of "disloyalty," far from appearing cute to me, really sort of disgust me. and i don't know why this is so. i can appreciate that these are actually endearing qualities. it's just- in me, there is something that has a hard time tolerating the weak and small creatures, that demand something that it is not their place to demand.
i've tried to moralize this: maybe, i think, it is because I was never offered a chance, a mercy (i have, actually). maybe it is because the world was cruel to me (it wasn't, honestly).
i don't know.
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