INSIDE the Box

So I’m up in the attic,  painting.  I hear this noise.  I think nothing of it,  too busy at the task at hand.  Probably nothing.  My garret windows being blown back and forth in the wind.  They’re really old windows and the locking screw thingy on the – they don’t stay open.  But it’s early morning and the windows were closed all night and I hadn’t opened them yet.  Oh no,  a bee?  A big bee can sound like a Bee 52 when it’s frantically pounding at the pane,  trying to fly through it. 

I get my share of bugs – you name it!  Ladybugs.  Stinkbugs.  Bumble Bees.  Wasps.  Hornets.  Yellow Jackets.  Goliath Beetles.  Moths of every persuasion – especially at night when I’m painting in a dark room with only my easel light shining.  They climb on me,  they flitter at the light bulb in my light – if I didn’t know any better I’d swear the stinkbugs were actually interested in my work.  They seem to hover and land on particular colors.  I do,  however draw the line when interest crosses the line into obsession.  They get three buzz bys before I take drastic measures.  But usually I just spend the night flicking them off the canvas with my thumb and index finger.  The hit the wall,  drop to the floor,  disoriented and out of my way.  Of course,  five minutes later they’re right back up and buzzing in my face.   

A bug in a jar.  Ever put a bug in a jar?  They go nuts trying to get out – not that they understand the concept of  ‘out’  and  ‘in’,  but they do,  in a strange way,  seem to understand the concept of  ‘freedom’.  All they know is that they’re not doing their job – pollinating or weaving newspaper into hives or eating leaves or whatever bugs do for a living.  I think this concept is universal for all living creatures.  From our lofty ideals and our First Amendment rights to that Monarch Butterfly in the jar who couldn’t care less about freedom of speech but knows all to well about that freedom of assembly thing – he’s got about a million of  his buddies out there waiting on him to get that migration started to the butterfly Woodstock somewhere in Mexico.

But this sounds bigger than a bug.  Oh no!  A bat?  I take a few steps back from my easel and look.  It’s a bird.  Better than a bat,  mind you,  I get my share of both,  but a bird?  What do I do now? 

I don’t know how it got in.  My only guess is that it flew in the day before when I came downstairs for a lunch break.  I don’t have screens on my windows.  Like I said,  they’re garret windows and they’re not made to have screens.  I dropped some mosquito netting over the windows and secured it pretty well to the molding.  Usually works pretty good.  Usually. 

It was a sparrow.  I trapped it between the netting and the glass,  gently cradled it in my hand,  and eased it out to freedom,  the trees and telephone wires and birdbaths of beautiful Abington,  but this incident got me to thinking.  When we first bought this crazy old house,  nearly twenty years ago,  we noticed that the wood,  the sill and the molding of the back window of what was then the dining room had been,  for lack of a better word,  chewed away,  most of it anyway.  Some animal had stumbled in one day,  perhaps when the realtor was showing the place,  and then found itself trapped after the realtor and the prospective buyers left.  It was quite a sight.  Such desperation!  This creature,  like my sparrow,  just had to get out.  It was almost as if the place was on fire.    

There’s this commercial on t.v. for a new series.  Stephen King.  Somehow a great big glass dome is dropped over an entire town,  or county,  somewhere in … Stephen King?  I’m guessing Maine? 

Everyone in the commercial hates this dome thing but,  I’m guessing,  the ones inside the dome hate the dome a little more than the ones outside. 

It’s a really big dome though.  Looks like you could pretty much go about your business as usual under this thing.  It’s glass,  so there’s sunlight.  Obviously there’s air and water,  or everyone would be dead in a few days.  And the people on the inside seem to be just the same as the people on the outside,  only really pissed.

How big does a box have to be before whatever’s trapped inside it stops trying to get out?  Or does size really matter? 

Is futility enough? 

Take the tigers in the zoo.  Is it just a matter of making  the wall just high enough to be out of the average tiger’s leap.  ‘Tony’ eases up to that wall and says to himself  ‘Hey,  I’m pretty good but,  aint gonna happen,  Jack!’

Complacency?  Drop a ton of bananas on  ‘Earl’,  the silverback gorilla,  and surround him with the  ‘Dallas Gorilla Cheerleaders’?  A snake can live,  perfectly content in a burlap sack.  All you have to do is toss a live rat in there every two weeks or so.  It won’t writhe and wriggle and contort to get out – as long as it knows another rodent tartare is on the menu.

But if there’s a hole in the bag,  that snake will escape – guaranteed dinners or not.  And if that tiger is feeling his oats one particular morning,  he’ll give it a shot – the leap of his life.

How big?  The whole Earth to wander.  The height of its  highest mountains.  The depth of its deepest oceans.  All of its pleasures – its crazy,  limitless,  beauty!  And yet,  ever since we first looked up at the stars we’ve known,  like that frantic sparrow in my attic,  that we have to get out of here!  We just have to!

I guess it’s not how big the box is.  After all,  the human mind,  contained in a container smaller than a shoe box,  cannot be contained.  Life,  and the spirit that comes with life simply cannot be subjugated.    

Futility and comfort?  They’re the same thing,  and neither carry much weight in our decision to stay put or try to flee. 

No.  Deep down we all,  humans,  gorillas,  snakes,  stinkbugs and butterflies,  inherently sense that our buddies are out there waiting on us to get the migration started – Each to our own Woodstock.