"i want you to be king forever"

.... i recently watched  "where the wild things are" by director Spike Jonze.... a nice family friendly film, and a philosophical film in its own right. It explores personal identity, which begins to take shape at an early age, as seen in this film with Max. It explores the psychology of loneliness and questioning of ones surroundings. shortly,  it is the story of a boy reveling in his imagination, rebelling against his "misunderstandings" ...... running away he faces the often arduous interactions within a closed group of people, the intricacies of leadership and the cost of selfishness. unfortunately,  I can say I have never been familiar with the book, but i did enjoy this movie, and oddly bonded with it. It resonated the pages of my childhood. I personified it .
It starts off with max building a snow fort by himself, talking to imaginary friends, as i often did in our first winters here.

When we came to Canada, I was six or so, we moved every year or two. My parents were non existent to me, literally selling their souls, working around the clock ( my mother anyways) My father........ displaced. My sister, ten years my senior, with the world on her shoulders, pushed away as much as possible but the family ties keeping  her "tied" to every situation. I was one of the only people she felt she could take negative emotions out on (unfortunate scapegoat). I can tell you not the best foundation for a relationship.

Moving so often, made it hard to make friends, it didn't help that i was shy and introverted, by the time they warmed up to me, or rather i warmed up to them, it was time to move to another city. This is where my artistic interests flourished. As a child, i found a way to express myself, escape myself, sometimes innocent, sometimes shocking and disapproving, probably to get a reaction.

as a child, I made things , I made boats and vehicles, using cardboard boxes, duct tape,etc. I enjoyed the creative process probably more than the finished product. I imagined these vehicles taking me away to amazing places.  I once attempted to built a tree house with my father's tools in a seemingly unassuming tree, in a suburban neighborhood, that adventure ended early with a distressed housewife calling the police.

Another time when i was eight or nine, I taped together buckets and pots to make a fashion dummy. I then took every bed sheet in the house,and sewed a gown, a beautiful fairytale gown , worthy of a princess. ( my family didn't share my artistic vision :/ my mother was the only one that was uncomfortably proud  )

I made friends, I would stitch them together, carry them with me everywhere, like a conscious. I would write and illustrate stories in private, always making myself the hero/antihero. My imagination was more than my best friend, it was my escape.

Max feels lonely, his imagination discovers this place where he is loved and accepted. For once he is in control, finally in control.. of something... He becomes king, king of the monsters he was at first afraid of.... At first they want to eat him, he convinces them of his "power" his "superiority",  of his childlike, invincible confidence,,  he is ready to be a leader, in his own world.


after max expels all his "supernatural" qualities in order to save his life. 
one of the creatures asks,

"what about loneliness?"
another creature adds
"what he's saying is will you keep out all the sadness?"


he goes through trials and tribulations with the pack(his new found temporary family) , at some point his boyish empathy says "I wish you had a mom"


not long after that he becomes aware of what he is missing at home. he decides to go back, go back to his family. Particularly his mom.

 one of the female creatures says:

"Don't  go!.... I'll eat you up, I love you so!"

cute and at the same time morbid line; (that i assume belongs to the book)

mother/child reunions inevitability tear at my heart strings,

 no matter how basic the matter. there will always be this void.

but,,as unexpected as it is, we should always expect it. (death)


you end up growing stronger because of it...


In my hermit childhood adventures , i would notice many things, I would walk around and take note of the precisely executed ant hills,the admiral  architectural system, watch them gather food to take back home.I would naively but genuinely feel bad to see a footprint crush their livelihood their whole "ant empire"


I would walk around with a bag of sugar as some sort of martyr, spilling a generous handful to every ant hill i saw.

Another time I gave a rather lonely and lengthy funeral to a crow i saw laying on the side of the street.
right now I may be disturbed by the notion of a ten year old girl digging a grave for a crow, but that was me so, what can i think?

i could say i don't know why i did these things, but ... much over a decade later i can make a guess.

i perhaps had a need to be needed....

and to be creative , to make "art" was a way to be in control of something that is entirely mine.