Tassajara Journal Review 1

     I have wanted to write something in here for a while, but I have been both bothered by too many ideas and bothered by too little motivation for any one of them.  So to appease my longing to contribute to this project and to express something that is going on for me right now, I am posting a journal entry from my time at Tassajara. 

     At times, I feel like the mouse in this next story.  And what I symbolize in the story, the ogre, the oaf... Well that could be a number of things.  No need to name them.  Anyways, here it is:

Monday, June 13 -- Day 65 (10:30 pm)
     Just now, in the bathroom, a large mouse or smallish rat was surprised by my arrival [in the lower barn bathroom] and had no way to escape.  So what he did is find the corner farthest from me and make himself as small as possible.  When I went closer to get a good look at him, he dashed past me to a different corner (inset of sorts, on the step up to the stalls) and hid behind the broom/dustpan.  I was able to sit on the step and see him closer, but as I reached to tap his tail he made a break for it across the room and this time behind the container for hair clippers.  Again, I went closer.  I kept this up for a little bit; partly to see this creature closer, but also partly to observe his method of self-preservation...and...it wasn't much, really.  I mean, without an escape all he could do was put some object between us or just bury his face in a corner and hope that I would leave.  If I got too close for comfort, he would make a break for it.  Watching him at one point, cowering, whiskers aquiver, I realized, "he's more scared of me than I am irritated by him."  Then I brushed my teeth.  While brushing, I went up to him in a new spot behind the plastic bin the toilet plunger is kept in and pinned him against the wall with said bin so I could give him a tiny stroke on the back in a last attempt at comprehension, on my part, of the reality of this creature, and communication of peace as well, no matter how unlikely it was that it would be understood.  Then I thoroughly washed my hands (who knows what diseases it might by carrying in his fur?) and finished brushing my teeth.