Ownership and Stewardship and Stories

Drawing Hands by M.C. Escher, © Cordon Art-Baarn-the Netherlands.

I remember the overwhelming sense of awe I felt when, as a teenager, my brain permitted me to fully understand that my body was mine; and mine alone. As I remember the circumstances, nothing in particular triggered the sense of reverential amazement that I was in such astonishing control of my body—especially my hands. The clearly visible blood vessels and tendons in my hands and forearms struck me, somehow, as miraculous. I have never shared with anyone my sense of wonder at my own hands. I thought fascination with my own body and, in particular, my hands was strange and inexplicable—an embarrassingly narcissistic appreciation of something so plain and so common. Instances of being enthralled with my own “ownership” of my body declined in frequency as I grew older, but they have never completely disappeared. To this day, I do not understand the source of this esteem and veneration. I wonder whether I am alone in attributing such intense appreciation for my own physicality? Obviously, this narcissistic tribute is not based on exceptionalism. Maybe, instead, it arose from my admiration for the image produced here; I have always loved the work of M.C. Escher, ever since my oldest brother gave me a copy of a coffee table book of Escher’s drawings.

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I’ve been sitting at my desk for half an hour or so, laughing quietly to myself over stories I doubt I ever heard before. Despite having never heard them—to my knowledge—my artificial memories seem very real. One of the stories, told to me in my oldest brother’s voice in my head, had to do with my mother preferring to have a Staffordshire Terrier as a pet, as opposed to a Mexican free-tailed bat. Somehow, the story incorporated some erroneous embellishments that changed the nature of the story entirely. My mother had once favored the bat over the dog because of the bat’s superior skills at catching and killing mosquitoes but, because the bat had accidentally flown into my mother’s glass of wine, her preference had changed. The dog subsequently was outfitted with a set of artificial wings that enabled it to fly around the sun porch to capture mosquitoes. I do not remember this story first-hand, but the telling of it convinced me it was real.  Another story that flitted through my mind involved my sister returning from a summer traveling in Europe, with a reindeer in tow. The reindeer could not be transported in the aircraft cargo hold due to space limitations, so my sister had to buy a seat for it in the first-class cabin. The animal over-imbibed on the flight back to the U.S….to the extent that it had to be escorted off the plane by security guards to control the drunken beast. My father posted bail for the creature; unfortunately, the intoxicated boozer fled after being released from jail, so my father forfeited the bail money.

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I believe it was Dorothy Parker who was quoted as saying, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”