The Whisker as Talisman
Whenever I see a whisker on the floor or bed, I pick it up and put it in my jewelry box. I’ve never sent one to anyone before tonight. I had just written a letter to someone who is an “online friend” (we view and sometimes comment on each others’ Flickr photos). She recently lost her senior dog and I asked for her address so I could send her a “real” letter in a card. Before I sealed the envelope I had the sense that I wanted to send her something more than “just words.” I walked around my house trying to think of what to send and eventually found myself at my jewelry box.
A whisker is a kind of talisman to me. It came from an animal I love and although I can keep it it reminds me that we can never really keep another. A whisker marks a space of time–that it grew, that it stayed as part of the animal. It marks time during which we shared space, air, love. He or she rubbed the whisker against me and on things in the world in which we both walk.
A whisker is an talisman, a marker of time, a connection between me and an animal I love.