tales for dreamers: about my favourite woodland creature

My favourite woodland creature is a real mystery.

For the most part it looks human, but it changes continuously. Not in any overtly visible way, but when you do spot the changes, it’s almost as if the creature had mysteriously shape-shifted under my very nose and it had taken me a very long time to realize it.

For instance, it seems to grow taller literally overnight. The contours of its face change without warning; the nose grows a little longer, the cheeks a little sharper, seriousness and silliness begin to jostle for place beside innocence on its features.

It learns new skills everyday; these days it has become awfully good at playing pranks. 

It is very fond of the colour orange. It makes all things orange look really cool and stylish.

But what makes my favourite woodland creature most mysterious is the goodness of its kind, trusting heart. A goodness of the quiet, accepting kind.

For you see this creature accepts you for who you are. Tall or short, happy or sad, kind or cruel, it sees you exactly for who you are and makes no judgements about your state of existence.

With every passing year, my favourite woodland creature becomes more and more independent, eager to explore the woods by itself or with its friends. There was a time when it was slow and took to pausing at every step, and I’d patiently wait for it, no longer a slave to time. Yes, this is another skill it has, the art of bending time to its will. 

Now it has become faster, or perhaps it is I who’s become slower, unable to match its pace. I only catch glimpses of it as it darts from one place to another in the woods, exploring. Here now, gone the next instant. Darting like a squirrel here. Leaping like an antelope there.

But no matter whichever shape or form it turns up in, I know I will always recognize my favourite woodland creature. Our souls are connected in the way any two souls are: inexplicably, unbreakably, yet uniquely so.

Last week's image info: I could have taken the photo of 'a sticker for a moon' from anywhere on land. To be more precise, we were stepping out of D's skating lessons at the Appleby Ice Rink when we were treated to this sight of the moon glowing unabashedly in the sky.