Thanks Easter bunny

Alexandra Eldridge, 2011, http://www.alexandraeldridge.com

Recently, my oldest son asked me if I’d seen the Easter bunny.  I said, “Not recently, but last time we spoke, he hadn’t had his second cup of coffee so he was, well, a bit crabby.”

“Oh, kinda sounds like you, mom,” he sighed.

We find ourselves wandering these unfamiliar streets sometimes, befuddled at the intersection of imagination and reality. Not really sure what to say, yet understanding vaguely that imagination must be nurtured. Hearing the Einstein eyes of this rabbit whisper,  “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” What to say to be truthfully imaginative? Or imaginatively truthful?

Just like in these Alexandra Eldridge paintings. “To do” lists fly helter-skelter and a too helpful butterfly unravels the coiled clothesline of reasonableness, now a scattered string of lost thoughts. Spilled coffee drips languidly down the right side of the canvas. Mr. E. Bunny at 6:15 AM.

Perhaps we could get some advice from this little charmer below, perched atop a yellow easter egg-shaped hill.  Stones sprinkling down from the clouds. Fragments of words, thoughts getting lost in the downpour. Couldn’t Mr. Bunny could spring off the hill anytime he chose, to avoid the pelting?  Perhaps he is frozen. An instinctual, native response to danger.  The feeling I get when my kids ask me if I’ve seen the Easter bunny.

“Not lately honey, I mainly just email him.”

Alexandra Eldridge, Look Up, Russell Collection, Austin, Texas