Letter from a Hedgehog to a Little Girl. 1987.
“Surely the hedgehog, furling and unfurling
into its spiked little ball, knows something
that, with gentle touch and unthreatening
tone, can inure to our benefit, surely the wicked witches of our childhood have died and, from where they are buried, a great kindness has eclipsed their misdeeds. Yes, of course, in the end so much comes down to privilege and its various penumbras, but too much of our unruly animus has already been wasted on reprisals, too much of the unblessed air is filled with smoke from undignified fires. Oh friends, take whatever kindness you can find and be profligate in its expenditure: It will not drain your limited resources, I assure you, it will not leave you vulnerable and unfurled, with only your sweet little claws to defend yourselves, and your wet little noses, and your eyes to the ground, and your little feet.”
-Michael Blumenthal
Dear Little Girl, observant but reticent; always thinking. Thinking as if the world depended on it. Do you already suspect that most of life is wasted on the future? Do you already sense that birthday candles are a mirage?
Retaining. Attaining. Retaining. Attaining. (Pete and Repeat were sitting on a log. Pete fell off.)
Collecting fragments to construct- not a fool’s perfect world, not his loud perfect life, but your perfect place in it. Your X on the idiots map. Twisted. Tucked. Moved. Molded. Uncomfortable but conformed finally to the single missing piece that proves you are a part of the puzzle.
But I see it in your less than smile, looking at those candles: that you are starting to know what I now know, an accidental freedom first written to you by Beverly Cleary. Your life is not a manifesto so much as a song; not a race so much as a dance. Sing! Dance! Romona Quimby does not learn to be a better girl, she just grows.
Your mind, Little One, it runs for tomorrow. Yet your lungs breathe only today. In The Kingdom, the one of the Sage, time is more art than science. Today is the only day. Tomorrow is a fugitive. It comes only never and always—chased but for love nor money, caught. So, waste not your tears, Little Girl; those tears for the future: a world that does not exist. I’m here now so I can tell you, that world was never real. “In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time…”-CS Lewis
Can you hear me, Little Girl with the puppy on your shoulder? Two words for you, Lass. Would that they could be coursed back through time. “Would that they could,” though, another fugitive. So instead, two words for you, Matron. And to you, Witnesses (for the ears, like the lungs, can only hear today). Two words.
Two words: Unfurl thyself.
Two more: Sing. Dance.