~~Flashback~~Amritsar, India and Long Island, NY - March 2009
My mother-in-law and father-in-law took a trip to India this past spring. The trip was one of the many preparations for their daughter’s wedding. It was a shopping trip and a visit to the famous Sikh Golden Temple. Before the trip my children were quizzed about what gifts they wanted from India. The only thing my 3 year old son wanted was a toy mouse. My son’s name is Navin (his name is usually pronounced Naveen, like Lost actor Naveen Andrews). Both of my youngest children were named by their grandmother (Dadiji), and she has never seen Lost. Navin’s every wish is her command, so a black mouse with pull-back roller wheels made its way from India to Long Island, New York. Navin claimed his prize in April during a quick visit to New York. Happiness is watching a little boy send a fuzzy, black mouse zipping across the kitchen tiles. Sadness is when he realizes the mouse is in Long Island and he is in Nashville. Never fear! The Dadaji is here! ~~Flash Forward…a little bit~~Nashville - May 2009
Navin’s grandfather (Dadaji) comes to Nashville, and delivers the mouse in person! After a few days of play, Dadaji returns to New York, but not before Navin pulls the tail off the mouse and slips it into his grandfather’s shirt-pocket. Back in New York, Dadaji has a good laugh and misses Navin even more when he reaches into his pocket and finds the mouse tail. ~~Flash forward some more~~Nashville - September 19, 2009
Between May and September, the family had made another trip to New York to help pull off a huge Indian wedding, where the worldly mouse tail was lost and found and lost again. Back home in Nashville, Navin was happily playing with the tailless mouse when Dadaji called with the news: they found the tail! A package would be on the way filled with goodies; including a black, plastic tail for Navin’s mouse.
Later that evening I worked on my blog. I was dazed to see people online suggesting that ‘Myrna Is Not A Real Person’, again. During my confusion, Dadaji called. He laughed that he had an idea for my blog. I should write the story of the mouse tail, and it should be called, “A Tail Of Two Cities.” My head rattled when these words hit my ear. I could almost see the little particles of synchronistic dust floating in midair, trying to get into my head. We laughed about how things work out in life, and hung up. I didn’t try to explain to Dadaji how the previous week I included an unpublished list of websites for the Lost Underground Art Series on my blog, and how the fan that had placed the first order for the next print had just, hours ago, received an autographed gift from the producers of Lost. It was a copy of Charles Dickens’s, A Tale of Two Cities.With my head hurting, my blog project hijacked, and my reality in question, I’m going to try to move beyond all of these wacky coincidences and bizarre synchronicity. So, if you are still wondering if Myrna is a Real Person or if all of this is a giant, surreal mind game, then you’re in good company.
