Digressions: My Life in 500 Words or Less

A couple of months ago, Rebecca and I got a couple of new neighbors. Intentionally or not, they represent a range of thoughts from creed to cryptid, from faith to fable.

Our new neighbors are Buddha and Bigfoot.

OK, so they are yard ornaments. They appeared on the property of one of our neighbors out of the blue.

Yep. Both of them are on the same small parcel of land.

It is a little disconcerting to drive down the alley and catch sight of a short, squat man sitting on the corner. It is even more disconcerting to see a tall, hairy bi-ped frozen in the act of rushing toward me as I drive past the backyard.

Now imagine walking past the property at night and suddenly seeing Sasquatch striding toward you. Yeah, I’ve done that, too. It happened not long after the ‘Squatch was first placed in the yard, when I had just become aware it was there. I was walking toward downtown and had completely forgotten about the new neighbor. I was probably taking the dogs for a short walk and completely focused on them to make sure they didn’t get into anything they shouldn’t.

You know how you can walk by something and, in the corner of your eye, notice something just within your peripheral vision? That’s what happened. And when I turned to look I must admit the lumbering cryptid momentarily startled me. Yeah. It got me, and maybe that was the intent. Of course, under my breath I cursed my forgetfulness, and afterward I laughed about the incident.

On the other hand, it is almost comforting to see the smiling figure sitting cross-legged on the corner of the property. The spiritual leader, fittingly, reposes in one of the greener stretches of our neighborhood, a yard filled with a wide variety of bushes, plants, flowers and trees.

So what does all this mean to me?

I’m not sure.

But like so many things, the arrival of these new neighbors provided a source of reflection for me. It strikes me how far apart these iconic figures are, yet how closely related. One represents spiritual enlightenment while the other embodies corporeal ferocity. They both revolve, on one level or another, around belief.

That is, by no means, a way of diminishing or elevating either of these figures. They now stand within feet of each other in my neighborhood, and, as minds tend to do, mine can’t help but infuse these representations with some kind of logic, to make some kind of connection between them.

Yeah, I know this was likely not the intent of the neighbor who placed those figures in his backyard. And, in the end, they are lawn ornaments.

Still, I welcome those lawn ornaments.

After all, aside from my own neighbors, how many people can say they have Buddha and Bigfoot as neighbors?