There is a light that never sleeps.
No, not that one. I’m talking about a freaky purple light that should really consider a nap now and again.
In my neighborhood, there is a certain house with a certain window. Once the sun goes down, this window becomes a beacon of freakitude. We’re talking flashing, cosmic purple lights every single night. Once in awhile red replaces purple, but the majority of the time, we’re looking at a veritable Prince tribute window.
At first I thought it might be some sort of child’s nightlight. But the pace and pulse of the flash, combined with the just-too-kooky color, now have me thinking otherwise. It’s a little bit disco, a lot Vincent Price, and entirely extreme.
It’s frankly freaky.
But it’s making someone feel very much alive.
When it comes to freaky behavior of which Prince would approve, cats are second to none. How else can we explain Cotton‘s taste for colored paper, or Walter‘s penchant for spinning madly, or Anemone‘s infinite affection for boxes?
What do we do with weird phenomena like Dani‘s inchworm-like acrobatics, or Tux‘s free-to-be-me peeing on desks, or Anka‘s excitement at roaring and growling and throwing his entire 85-pound Turkish sumo body at the side of his pen any time Cotton comes close?
It would be very easy to judge and jeer and disdain a window that constantly flashes purple. What’s wrong with those people?
It would be entirely natural to cast a skancey glance at a neighbor who wears exclusively safety orange.
It would come quite comfortably to most of us to keep our social distance from a stranger who gets a little too strange.
But maybe they, and we, are all just trying to feel alive.
Especially right now, it’s the weird and the personal that’s keeping us all sane. Suddenly my furry scrunchies and over-sweetened vanilla tea and endless, generationally-inappropriate affection for Neil Diamond* (he am, he says!) are more precious and meaningful than ever before.
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
…not even after I peed on it.”
So what if it’s a little strange?
So what if you, like Cotton and I, are consoling your quarantiney self with new and bizarre snacks? Cotton’s colored paper, my canned mushrooms, your slightly-stale Corn Pops…who’s to judge us?
We are finding ways to comfort ourselves.
We are stronger and stranger than we were before.
And it’s all OK, even if we do make the neighbors wonder.
Keep on flashing, you fabulous creatures. Who knows? Somewhere, maybe even Prince and Prince Tashi are cheering you on.
*I was seven years old at the time of the linked video. And if you had asked my 7-year-old self, I would have proudly told you that I loved Neil Diamond. And my 39-year-old self still does. #ForeverInBlueJeans #ForeverDork