I met my cousin for a coffee at Caribou this morning.
I don't even like Caribou, and I don't like driving to her town with more one-way streets than I could begin to enumerate and, as often as not, a freight train coming through with no bridge over which to escape. I don't even know how to say no to my cousin because even though I say, "Let's meet at Starbucks," I always find myself sitting across from her at Caribou.
Anyway.
At some point in our conversation I looked over at the rack of fair trade items, just as if I was sitting at Whole Foods, and I became enamored with this little fox. I loved how he is on a burnished gold background having a lovely chat with his bird friend. I loved how whimsical they are, and soft, and I thought, "If I buy that little purse it will make me happy every time I look in my bag and see it."
So, I did. Buy it.
And my cousin said, "You're so hard to pin down. Your style is so eclectic." Which must have been bothering me all day because here it is eight hours later and I'm still pondering her words. She looks at my red lipstick, and smells my Chanel No. 5, and she wonders why I don't fit in a box which she has constructed for me to fit within. Perhaps it alarms her that I resist the box. That I am, to her, undefinable.
And probably I am undefinable. Even to myself.
It's the same with the books that I read. Can any of them fit within one genre? Do I have a favored type of book to review? No, there are children's books and classics, translated fiction and contemporary fiction, anything which catches my fancy.
I don't want to fit in a box. Of anyone's construction. If ever I fit neatly into a box, I may as well be dead inside a coffin. Because then there wouldn't be any more surprises.
There wouldn't be any more toys for children over 3.
