By Jamie, a Trail Mix Contributor
Copies of this wonderful story by Dana Michel of the well loved little grey cat are very rare and you can’t have mine. More than a half century ago, this was my daughter’s favorite book because it went up and down from the little cat in the box on a chair in the room in a house on a street with five trees in a city in a state in a country in the whole wide world and back down again to the box on a chair each trip going from the detailed & specific to faster and faster as adjectives and adverbs were omitted to speed the trip until finally you got to “Now Go To Sleep”. She loved it for its view of the safety of the little box to all the places outside her door.
Little gray cat inside a square box. Square box on top of a big striped chair. Chair in the room. Room in the house. House on the street. Street in the city. City in the state. State in the country. Country in the world. Oh, where in the world is my little gray cat?
In the world a country. In the country a state. In the state a city. In the city a street. On the street a house. In the house a room. In the room a chair. On the chair a box and inside that box is my little gray cat.
So how is this political? I’ve come to the conclusion that Conservatives, Libertarians in the US and the extreme right wing movements around the world, simply don’t have a clue how big anything is, and they really need to read this book. Their views barely reach beyond the limits of their family to the street and colors every issue from employment to taxes to refugees. They need to read this book. The Liberals, Democrats and general left wing see the big big picture with a wide wide world of variables, possibilities and interests, but forget that many of those issues can feel like an alteration of all that is normal in a culture and that the majority of people live and look at a street with five trees. They really need to read this book.
So where are you on the spectrum? How to adjust to a globe that in communications and movement is shrinking almost by the second? How does your view from the little box on the chair to the whole of the globe color your political attitudes?
More Posts By Jamie
There is something about being in the midst of a couple dozen Amish men, women and children that I enjoy. I have been lucky enough to have grown up visiting their villages and towns since I was a young child. Their lives are very enticing. Oh the lack of anything beyond 1890 is something well known. The other parts of their lives are what I like.