Illustrations of Reality

Today we go back at last to Pirate Goat’s Log of Summer Island. Goat’s Log is a record of Pirate Goat adventures on the Island in the St. Lawrence River and is one of many layers of reality that intermingle quite happily on that enchanted isle.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to dwell on those multiple realities for a moment. I have heard Monsters express confusion and some discomfort about those who treat Animals “as if they were real.” This perplexes many dwellers of Big Bed Land, who find it quite odd that Monsters treat money as if it were real. When money is just bits of paper and plastic! Furthermore, Monsters have invented a kind of Time that is also a Monster, and seems to control them. Bink, while hesitating to criticize the “Time is Money” reality of Monsters when they have clearly worked so very hard on it for centuries now, would just like to point out that sometimes less is more. Less work, more play, Bink ventures to suggest.

Here are several viewpoints of Summer Island. Mouse Fairy Goldenrod joined Goat in many of Goat's adventures and even won from Goat the rare honor of a written description of her beauty! (You will read this later.) Adele, the Monster self of Mouse Fairy Goldenrod, drew this map to the Island- called Hickory Island by Monsters- and she clearly stated that the map was how she saw Goat seeing the Island. (It's actually all quite simple if you don't think about it too hard.)

She noticed that Willabear, the only BBL Animal at the Island who did not eventually go on any of the river-swimming expeditions, had a very different point of view of the Island - mostly from the vantage point of the porch where he often sat, visiting with the Animals as they took sunbaths after swimming, and dreaming of his fair Glamora. How handsome love has made him! M. Adele drew both maps into Goat's Log, and we thank her for her generosity. Mouse Fairies are notoriously generous except on the occasions when they are not.

Here is another view of the Island from the hands of the remarkably talented Monster Margot. She herself dwells in the multi-faceted realities of being Mouse Fairy Tulip, our Beloved Queen, as well as Pioneer Woman, mother, artist, and now community social activist for the arts!

A Love Story

Since we had already taken a break from Goat’s Log for festivities with Hyggehus, Pinky suggested that we tell a part of the Summer Island story that Goat is unlikely to mention except in passing. That is, the revelation that Willabear was in love. It came as a surprise to Monster E. too! (Only one other Animal of Big Bed Land has fallen in love, and that was when Mooselers admitted to a serious crush on Nell Shipman, the extraordinary writer/actress/film editor of the silent screen.)

Willabear was a relatively recent arrival in BBL when he went to Mouse Fairy Island this summer along with Lefty, Goat, and Chinaberry. Willabear has always been a dapper sort, and the Animals find this one of his fine qualities, along with his extremely relaxed attitude (which is genuine and not for show.) The combination of dapper and relaxed- even to the point of floppy!- is most unusual and piquant.

At the Island, Willabear pointed out that he needed a bath. Monster E. can be remiss in this area and often needs to be reminded. Since there is no running water at Summer Island, Violet Mouse Fairy helped fill a large basin with water from a hand pump in the kitchen for washing dishes that brings water up from the river. Violet has great and unusual insight into the Animal heart. When Willabear told her that he would like a fragrant shampoo with his bath, she began to guess the secret that he later revealed to her: that he was in love- and that his love lived in Big Bed Land.

As soon as she mentioned this, I realized at once who the Animal of his affections must be. “Glamora the Giraffe!” I said to myself, I said, “Self, it must be Glamora.” I had always suspected that great mystery dwelt behind those dramatic eyelashes of questionable authenticity. Through Willabear’s eyes, I perceived the complex beauty of her imagination and it felt like walking into a very three-dimensional snowflake—with planes of color on each crystal facet that kept turning into different landscapes: an unfurling frond of fern that became a paisley jungle of skirt drying on a chair next to a radiator clanking its way through the beat that chorus girls danced to when Forbidden Passion was a shade of lipstick red and frost furred the thin edge of the windowpane… Glamora was right to lower her lashes! A less capacious soul than Willabear’s could get completely lost in her eyes.

The Animals and Mouse Fairies are helping the happy couple plan a winter wedding. Glamora has already tried on her veil which came from the Council thrift shop. Who would have guessed that a place called the “Thrifty Shoppe” would be a place you could purchase a wedding veil for a giraffe? And on dollar-a-bag day too! What wonders life holds.