The Obliviousness of Tigger

The other day I was trying to explain to someone my artistic process. It was an odd conversation from the get-go because I don’t consider myself an artist and I don’t know what my process is.

“The collages happen,” I said. “I start cutting out pictures not really knowing what the final piece will be. Somewhere along the line, it takes a turn and I’m looking for specifics. For backgrounds or animals or people. It’s like shopping for a gift for someone you love; I know it when I see it.”

Today the Stream of Consciousness writing prompt is “wild animal.” I knew immediately what wild animal I wanted to do — a tiger. I had been to the zoo a few weeks ago with my granddaughter. The tiger there fascinated me.

It was so beautiful and huge and sad, pacing back and forth along the fence at the far side of its enclosure. Padding, padding, padding, down and back, its huge paws silent and powerful.

I read the explanation at the zoo about how tigers are losing their natural habitats to human expansion. According to the World Wildlife Fund, they have lost 95% of their historical range. They are also poached and their body parts traded.

We “save” them by putting them in zoos.

So tigers — for a collage. I cut out half a dozen of them last night, then sat down this morning to create my collage.

My favorite tiger didn’t make the cut.

I mean — he made the cut from the book, a beat-up scribbled in copy of Where is Christopher? by Anne Lawrence. He didn’t make the cut for the collage. Tigger, however, did.

Oblivious Tigger. Goofy smile. Happy-go-lucky. Oh, the wonderful thing about Tiggers, right?

I think his obliviousness is less about the danger from the tiger and more about the greater plight of the tiger, don’t you think?

It would be so easy to extrapolate this to humans. We are oblivious to the plights of our fellow human beings.

It would be so easy to jump on a soapbox about this, but I will be the first to admit my own obliviousness and my ignorance.

It feels like too much for me to take on.

I will pad back and forth in my enclosure.

And pray.

Lord, help me to see.