She is no bigger than three inches tall and I fell in love with the figurine as soon as I saw it. She reminded me of my daughter when she was a toddler, always curious, always full of wonder, complete with Pebbles hairstyle. I just had to buy it. I found it the other day while decluttering. I dusted it, reaching tiny spaces with a cotton bud, looked at it and wondered, can I reframe my thoughts of feeling trapped into a feeling of curiosity?
It did start that way but five days in, the idea started to get old, even though I am in my own space. Trapped because I am only eight days into my self imposed isolation. I wanted to experience what 14 days of isolation would feel like so I could understand how others feel. It’s not a nice feeling but reframing constantly, this is an exercise of safety for self and others, brings some comfort and enhances resilience.
In the mornings I feel like I am an animal in the zoo. The lorikeets watch me through the windows. The Willy Wagtail goes through a couple of hours of agitation, chit chitting along the windows, and patio, peering at me and buzzing the glass. I suspect a nest is being built in the mulberry tree. I experienced the same territorial behaviour two years ago when the bird constantly buzzed me when I went out with laundry. How tiny they are but at the moment, they are freer than me. I feel a shift in power and tip toe around my home, making my movements small and slow in submission.
Space is meaningful to me in so many ways. The space in one’s ‘head’ is specially interesting to me. Sometimes we create our own zoo of thoughts. We trap them. We examine them like they were exotic. Sometimes we yearn to domesticate them. Or like the Willy Wagtail, we become territorial about them. Some we set free and watch them soar, a feeling of relief, a feeling of letting go, like they were ours to set free. They never were. They set us free.
I’ve had an idea in my head and would love someone to paint or draw it for me, preferably with charcoal on white paper. The concept is a simple one. An open field. A some visible fence posts. A single, delicate, barbed wire hanging between the posts. The art would be called Freedom. When I think of this concept, I’ve often wondered, which side of the barbed wire do you have to be to experience freedom?
These days, I too am standing on my toes, filled with curiosity thinking about this.
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to Word of the Day Challenge – Zoo
Between Kellerberrin and Merredin is a parking spot where I usually stop for a few minutes to stretch my legs. The solitary trees in the paddock and the wide open horizon, is a familiar sight. It was dark every where, yet, the horizon was still bright.
I left Merredin a couple of days later, with the silo paintings on my right. They are a welcome sight by day break, but invisible by night.
In the dark I knew I had familiar landscape around me. The water pipe, for one. It carries water from Perth to the Goldfields. It was commissioned in the late 1800s and completed in early 1900. It is the lifeline of the people of the Goldfields. I cannot imagine the hardship endured by the workers who constructed this for hundreds of kilometers in harsh country. A reminder, life for me may seem challenging at times, but in comparison, I have nothing meaningful to complain about.
At night the air was acrid as I drove through tiny towns with streets empty of people. Bakers Hill, Clackline, Meckering, Cunderdin, Tammin, Kellerberrin. At times a distant glow kept me focused. The farmers were burning paddocks in readiness for seed. I’m impatient for winter to see some of these beige paddocks turn gold with canola.
A Shared Space 
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