ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997 TAG: 9704140128
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: MONTY S. LEITCH
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
PROBABLY, I shouldn't admit to this, but last night I found a tiny skull under my refrigerator.
I was searching for the cat's toy and, along with a clog of dust bunnies and crumpled twist ties, I swept out this itty-bitty, paper-thin skull.
It must be a mouse skull, and the rest of the skeleton might be under the refrigerator, too; but I guess I don't much want to look for it. No telling what else I might find.
How in the world could a mouse die and decompose under my refrigerator without me noticing? Mysteries abound.
But this is only one of my discoveries lately. Just after March went out like a lion, I found a perfectly good pink kite in the trees along the driveway; yards and yards of string were still attached.
I had to wait for the wind to blow the kite down - a wait of a couple of days - but now I have a really nice bat-wing kite, with yards and yards of string wound up on a stick.
I would gladly return this kite to its rightful owner if I knew who that child was.
But how far might the winds of March have blown that little pink kite?
All the way into April, at least.
I've been asking myself what these two found objects have in common: a mouse skull and a bat-wing kite. At first glance, they don't appear to fit together at all. But they've come together in my mind for some reason. What could it be?
First, they were both unexpected. Who would go sweeping under her refrigerator expecting mouse bones? Or who would keep her eyes on the trees, just in case she might spot a pink kite lodged there?
Secondly, each had already been in its hiding place a while before I found it. I don't know how long it takes for "mouse" to dissolve to "mouse bones," but I'm guessing it takes a while. And that kite - it had been in the trees long enough for its string to sag into my line of sight.
Also, each once belonged to someone else. The skull - well, obviously that belonged to the mouse; and the kite belonged to some still-unknown child.
Each is lightweight and fragile, and each is a container: the skull for tiny mouse brains, the kite for the wind.
As to differences - these are more than the similarities. You can think of them yourself. But the one that occurs to me is: high and low. As in, "I looked high and low, and this is what I found."
I am a collector of found objects. I have feathers (turkey, pileated woodpecker, seagull, crow, hawk, grosbeak, etc.) and rocks; the pale blue shells of robin's eggs, birds' nests, acorns, and several weathered carapaces from box turtles. Also, I have many bones.
Some of these, I've given away to little boys as interested in bones as I. The mouse skull I think I'll keep. Its fragility makes me think I'll never find another intact.
As to kites - well, this is my first found kite. I might decide to keep it, purely on account of that distinction.
On the other hand, would my life really be any less rich without a pink kite or mouse skull in it? Certainly I didn't feel the lack of them before I had them.
But I think I'd miss them now. All sorts of things fall into your life before you knew you needed them. Then, there they are, and you can't imagine how you got along without them. Children, for instance. Lovers. New friends.
Even pink kites and mouse skulls.
MONTY S. LEITCH is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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