"It's Clouds' Illusions I Recall..." or the Ink Blot Test

I’m not sure if it’s just me or does anyone else do this? I consider myself an observer of people and things I encounter during my daily routines and travels and on the more interesting ones I sometimes report them back for your amusement. It may also just be that I have too much imagination for my own good.

Anchorage is sometimes like a gold mine finding strange oddities in this arctic northland. Some of it could be considered comedy material or slices of life in sometimes strange or ordinary places about town! All you really have to do is walk the street for a few minutes and then let your imagination run wild.

Outside a downtown cafe, I saw a homeless man sitting at a table. He had a toothpick in his mouth and one hand rubbing his belly. On the table in front of him was a single, tiny, baby shoe.

I was somewhat odd but it made me laugh.

Now look, I'm not saying I wanted there to be a missing baby, but if I'd turned the corner and there was an empty stroller with a woman standing by it yelling, "Where's my baby?" That would have been kind of scary but at the same time since no baby was missing a little cool and funny.

I mean, what a great story I would have when the news crews showed up.

Bear attack? Nope.
Moose trample? Nope.

Homeless dude with a baby shoe.

Maybe that was his good luck piece or possibly a remembrance of his family.

Sometimes all you have to do is just keep your eyes focused to the ground. The objects will tell you a story.

Last summer in the space of a few feet I once saw a bunch of half-eaten cotton candy, a clown's nose, and a pair of handcuffs.

Was there a circus just about to leave town wondering where Binky was?
Any way you choose to look at it, something weird happened in those 8 feet.

What? I don't know.

But I have a story in my head.

I try to think of the garbage and refuse and lost items strewn in the city streets by our sometimes high winds and use it as the universe's ink blot test. I wonder what the universe thinks of me as I see eaten babies and kidnapped clowns.

Intimacy issues? Fear of abandonment? Or is it just an idle mind with too much imagination?

Who knows? My universe just isn't talking to me about this.

Try it yourself.

Walking today I saw these things:

A condom, unopened.
A pair of surgical gloves opened and removed from their package.
A bunch of green bananas.

Don't think. Just say whatever first comes into your head.
Got it?

Here's my take.

Somewhere in the city right now is a pissed off resident doctor and one lucky escaped monkey. Perhaps the doctor's sitting in his meeting before making rounds and being yelled at, you can’t use green bananas on that monkey!"

All right. It's clear I have some issues right now with medical profession. But at least I’m trying to be funny about some things that are really aggravating me lately!

I find this sort of thing interesting because there seems to be just enough information to intrigue and make you wonder but not enough to truly convey what really happened. That seems to be a recurring pattern in life. Very few things are as clear as we’d like them to be. It’s almost as if life is one big ink blot test . . . like somebody is doing a huge psychology experiment on humans to explore the nature of belief and understanding.

What’s your take? Do I need more sunlight to balance things out a bit or should I continue to let my imagination run wild?

Either way . . . Life’s a trip wherever the winds take me.

Ice