{"id":3845,"date":"2013-03-31T16:41:35","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T16:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/31\/reliquary\/"},"modified":"2013-03-31T16:41:35","modified_gmt":"2013-03-31T16:41:35","slug":"reliquary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/31\/reliquary\/","title":{"rendered":"Reliquary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thinkin’ ‘bout personal symbolism. <\/p>\n

I don’t go in for traditional superstitions, but I have a very strong tendency to anthropomorphise things, and assign undue significance to inanimate objects. Here follows an incomplete catalogue.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I found Glamour Lion lying on a footpath. I\u00a0fell for the heavy eye-makeup and expression of crazed optimism. Whenever I feel a deep, gnawing self-doubt, I pretend it is a superficial anxiety about my appearance, and I consult Glamour Lion, who invariably reassures me that I am killing<\/em> it, and that my sharp tie\/leather boots\/dishevelled spaceship pyjamas are all the armour I need against a mounting existential fear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Moral Dingo was also lying in the street one day. For any given dilemma, it’s generally not hard to figure out the most ethical course of action, but sometimes I need the encouragement of Moral Dingo’s compassionate, slightly rueful smile, because being a better person can be a pain in the neck. He is the wise friend I never want to disappoint. He does not need to speak. (The ring around his neck is from a barm brack cake; it pleases me that some traditions, like choking hazards in baked goods at Halloween, cling on in the face of common sense.)<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Traumaceratops. It is traditional to obtain a Moving-In Dinosaur whenever one moves house. The origins of this tradition are obscured by the mists of time, and I suspect I may have made it up, but I feel quite strongly about it now. \u00a0I bought Traumaceratops from a toy shop when I moved into my last home. He seemed bewildered, like I was. When I moved away again, his tiny kinsman, seen sheltering under his front legs, was a gift from my housemate.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

I used to travel quite a bit, but I gradually realised that it’s more important to pay attention to weird opportunities than rack up mileage. I sometimes wear this coin – 25 defunct Spanish pesetas – on a chain, to remind myself to go on more adventures. (I have never yet, in fact, been to Spain.)<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

I was making myself wretched one day, as most people do, thinking circular and futile thoughts. I might have been having a hypothetical argument with someone in my head. I was walking the waterfront when a gust of wind came and a blue balloon came hurtling past me out of nowhere. The beauty and absurdity of it snapped me back to reality. I managed to snatch a quick photograph and now whenever I’m wasting time and energy on useless anxiety, I look at this picture, in a hideous frame on my shelf, and think “blue balloon” and banish the thought from my mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Last year some time, I planted an assortment of seeds and one of the few that grew was this…thing, which I’m fairly sure wants to be an apple tree. Recently, most of the leaves dropped off, which I was disproportionately upset and worried about. As they fell, one by one, I gathered them up and placed them beneath the glass of a little framed photograph of Emily Dickinson, because I imagined she would sympathise with my idiotic oversensitivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

I was in a derelict tower block recently. I suppose it’s due to be demolished at some point. Almost all the fittings, furniture, electrics, etc. had been stripped, the windows and doors in each apartment were gone and I could wander endlessly through rooms and corridors and formerly private spaces and find nothing but filth and broken glass. Except for this little guy. An aquatic Action-Man knock-off, in wetsuit and flippers. It seemed important, somehow: finding this particularly human, even human-shaped<\/em> artefact in a place that had been systematically stripped of its humanity. A toy, whose sole purpose is to spark imagination and creativity, in the midst of all this impersonal destruction. I took him home and put him in a glass of water because I thought he’d feel more in his element, but he still seems kinda angry.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

I don’t know what he means to me yet, we’re still getting acquainted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Let Go Penguin. I went to a recycling centre last week. I hoard a lot of things (obviously) and sometimes it is an immense relief to get rid of some of it. I jettisoned two sacks of old clothing and whatnot, and then I noticed this little guy lying on the ground in the car park. I kept him to remind me that it’s alright to leave things behind, even things that used to seem important. At some point, I’m not going to need Moral Dingo, or Aquaction Man, or even Let Go Penguin any more. Because I will find new junk to get attached to, like the little broken guitar I pulled out of a skip five minutes later because I felt sorry for it. (And because I thought I might cannibalise some of the parts to repair another little broken guitar I bought six years ago in a charity shop – because I felt sorry for it.) Sidenote: I cannot play guitar.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Lump cat. I can’t imagine loving lump cat any more fiercely, and I can’t imagine anyone loving lump cat as much as I do. Everything about lump cat just seems so terribly unlikely<\/em>. That anyone would make this thing; that they would be satisfied to let it go on being as it is, and even send it to a charity shop with the expectation that someone might buy it; that someone would<\/em> buy it – someone I know – and that they would realise how much I’d love it, and give it to me – in a way, all this seems like such an improbable sequence of serendipitous events that just holding the ridiculous thing in my hands feels like a miracle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The word “unlikely” and all its connotations – heroic and ridiculous and wonderful and pathetic – lump cat embodies all that for me. Something existing in spite of itself. The fact that I am determined that lump cat is a cat, despite the conspicuous dearth of felinity, the total absence of any defining cat-like features. No ears, no tail, no whiskers; and yet its essence, its quiddity, is clearly cat<\/strong>. The expression of those uneven eyes, as variable as my own mood. The sheer absurdity of this fucking thing makes me want to laugh and<\/em> cry, the best possible confluence of feelings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that’s how I feel about the world sometimes. Life itself can only manifest while the stars are still burning, but in the context of the probable\u00a0timespan<\/a> of the universe, every star that will ever exist burns all at once, just a flicker of light, a match striking in infinite darkness. Once that flame gutters, and the galaxies have disbanded, protons will simply decay and black holes slowly evaporate for a span of time beyond imagining.<\/p>\n

And even within that astonishingly brief glow, the stelliferous period, we as living beings, capable of consciousness and love and terrible knitting, exist for an even briefer, white-hot moment. We are so unlikely<\/em>. So hilariously unnecessary and inconsequential and absurd and wonderful. If I ever catch myself taking something, anything, myself, too seriously, I look at lump cat and lump cat looks at me in silent assent: we really don’t have time for this. We’re not long for this world, me or lump cat; humanity itself; or even logic, as something conceptualised by conscious life. We’re just a sudden glimmer, like a shooting star. That beautiful, that bewildering and that brief.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Ha ha look at this fuckin’ thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I love you lump cat.<\/p>\n

I love you so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thinkin’ ‘bout personal symbolism. I don’t go in for traditional superstitions, but I have a very strong tendency to anthropomorphise things, and assign undue significance to inanimate objects. Here follows an incomplete catalogue. *** I found Glamour Lion lying on a footpath. I\u00a0fell for the heavy eye-makeup and expression of crazed optimism. Whenever I feel … Continue reading “Reliquary”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[424,105,423,422],"class_list":["post-3845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-cosmology","tag-found","tag-lump-cat","tag-symbolism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaisercaimo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}