November 26, 2008
The Journey, Part 2: Animal friends and oddities
I’ve always enjoyed odd or unusual things. I love expressions of creativity, especially the quirky ones! I think that is why Dumbledore is one of my favourite characters; he does odd things because they amuse him, and he doesn’t really care what others think of that. So whenever I travel, I keep an eye out for unusual roadside attractions!
One of my favourites is the “Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota” (made famous by a Weird Al song of the same name). It is literally a very big ball of twine. It is special to my family, and my brother and I made sure we went there on our trip. And what good luck! We were actually able to go inside its little pagoda and take pictures! Bad luck, the old guestbook we had signed as a family a bit over a decade earlier was stolen, so we didn’t get to revisit that memory. But while we were there, I got to reflect on the dedication of the man who made the twine ball, who spent decades adding little bits of twine here and there, until each little bit became one huge ball. I imagine many thought he was a bit crazy! But today, they celebrate that dedication with an annual festival.
I definitely feel we don’t give enough credit to creativity these days. It seems like we expect conformity and the same rehashed ideas over and over. It’s boring! And frustrating! I guess that is one reason why Harry Potter and the HP community are so appealing to so many of us. We get to explore our creativity, share our experiences and ideas, and all act a bit like Luna when we want to. While tradition has a valuable place, as does a cohesive community, we should be supporting creativity. Go ahead and color outside the lines, make the grass blue and the sky purple, and write a story about a boy wizard who defeats the most evil wizard of all time. With all the crazy things going on in the world today, all the problems we’ll need to solve, creativity will be vital.
One of the other things I usually try to do whenever I visit a new place (or an old place!) is seek out zoos or other animal sanctuaries; I ignore the malls. I don’t need to buy stuff, I want to see things, places, and creatures I don’t get to see every day, and for some things, might not get to see much longer thanks to the threat of extinction and environmental collapse. This trip, we stopped by a reptile gardens, and how wonderful that was! Sure it lacked cute cuddly little mammals, no little pigmy puffs were around, but reptiles have their own charm too. My very favourite was certainly the giant tortoises. They were so gentle! This guy just wanted to have a nap in the sun, though he didn’t say no to a nice chin scratch. And can you believe he’s over 100 years old! In fact, he’s older than ANY living human. Can you imagine that? This giant guy was born back when
airplane flight was a crazy fantasy and indoor plumbing was a rare luxury. My brief encounter with a basilisk was thankfully only with one of the statue variety. I guess he managed to petrify himself, and they painted him up and stuck him out in the yard. I know that’s what I’d do if I had a petrified basilisk just sitting around.
But it’s sad to think that might be the only way we get to remember some animals; photos, movies, the occasional stuffed creature. So many animals are facing extinction right now; some have already lost that battle. The biggest threat is from us. We take away or ruin their lands, keep them from finding food, mates, or proper shelter. In the sea, overfishing and pollution are quickly moving us towards oceanic collapse. There are giant “islands” of floating plastic, choking off the sunlight and ending up in the bellies of birds, fish, and other aquatic animals. We are destroying the land that all life depends on, human and animal, plant, fungi and bacteria alike. To think that this won’t come back to hurt us is ridiculously naive. The only question is how soon, and how badly. So that’s why I visit nature and animals whenever I can; I don’t know if it is the last chance I’ll have to see them. On the other hand, I don’t care if a mall closes and I never get to see it. Next blog, I visit history.
