05/02/2024 – And, speaking of spirit animals…

I have a practice of celebrating important occasions with “art” (a picture, a piece of jewelry, or glass). Our apartment is full of our visual history: a Japanese print of the moon through bamboo, recalling a haunting walk through the bamboo forest on Maui during our first trip together; the poster for “Carey’s movie” (he starred as “Dead Faculty Member”); a small acrylic of a Miami trolley, commemorating the weeks my parents spent with me there after my cancer surgery; a carved wooden “aqua sulis” coaster records New Year 2018, which we spent in splendid black tie at the Roman Baths in Bath, with my mum.

These days, our home also includes quite a few “treasures” from lost loved ones: my Auntie Jo’s mirror; my dad’s collection of ancient pottery (mixed with (i) pieces found on holidays by both families, treasured from childhood, and (ii) axes and arrowheads my dad found as a teen when the first tractor dug them off the mountain in the 1940s, tilling deeper than could a horse); my maternal grandfather’s brass knuckles… (do ask).

Most recent are my knotted strings of pearls, white and black, that mark my long-sought-for and short-held role with a First Nation, which, despite my failure, was a visceral learning experience and nurturer of gratitude.

So, when I got an email from my favourite antiquarian bookshop, announcing their moving sale, clearly, supertrip had to get the treatment.

Carey is a child of hippy parents. He tells stories of his “sister” Suzy, with whom he took naps and wrestled for snacks, particularly bananas. As he tells it, Carey usually won. Although she had the brawn, he had the brains, because she was a chimpanzee in a diaper. Suzy ultimately lived out a more chimpy life at the San Diego zoo, but she spent the Seventies in Edmonton. After Suzy, Carey had a long (pun intended) relationship with another animal: Boda the Boa Constrictor. Boda lived in Carey’s room; “snuggled” up to him on cold nights; traveled on the train in grandma’s knitting basket and, finally, escaped one cold winter night ten years later. He was found frozen solid in the morning and buried, with due solemnity, in a long, thin grave in the back garden.

The snake is symbolic in many cultures: in the shedding of its skin we have seen rebirth and renewal. They are intimately associated with healing and medicine, from the caduceus of Ancient Greek/Roman culture to the Medicine Serpent of the Anishinabek. Their shape and movement echoes the rivers and the precious gift of water.

For the first 3 years of his birthdays and Christmases, I gave my nephew a collection of animal sketches by Paul Jouve, the French Academician, fêted in Paris as an “animalier” (specialist in sculpting/painting animals). I love them. They will be a store of value for him if he doesn’t.

So, when I saw this (for 40% off!), I knew it was going on our wall.