the uNICORN IN CAPTIVITY

BY JOAN SILVER KATSKY

      A story, like a painting wrapped in a memory stimulated by images and painterly elements, can beg the writer to expose its “aboutness" and meaning.

      In this story, I can hear my child's voice repeating the memory of my grandfather in song and dance. These pleasures were a manifestation of his own childhood and they helped to temper his later, historical sadness.

      Capturing his attention as a child could make his tears sparkle, and shaped my irrepressible mission on these and future interactions with others to please and bring joy.

      In this telling, my story becomes for me an enduring memory tableau filled with gesture and intention.

      Before there were Redwoods and Eucalyptus in my California hills and the leaning Cyprus on the Pacific Coast made me swoon, there was my Russian grandfather in Brooklyn making “bathtub schnapps" and organizing his Langham Street garden, so that the Beach Roses almost covered my little playhouse.

      My reality of these images has created a timeless tapestry, with each of us in the middle of a colorful canvas, alive with a life begging nurture and appreciation.

      He and I were circled and held by the other's stories in song and intention. Family members approached him cautiously. His self-imposed “Beast” and bullying persona created a fence around his better nature where I always felt welcome. 

      On those Brooklyn weekends, with my family asleep and with the beach breezes holding the night, I could sometimes hear him whimper, his dreams and movements considering escape.

      I took my blanket and stuffed unicorn with me and snuggled against the hard, dividing wooden door to his bedroom. I could hear the firm, "Schaaa" of my grandmother, followed by her soft, reassuring hum. 

      In the morning, we stole away to Manhattan Beach, where I entertained him with my 5-year-old version of “I'm a Little Teapot" and he sometimes cried with delight while offering up something else resembling a long ago tune that kept it's words in Yiddish wrapped in a sway that invited me to dance for him.

      It doesn't take much for me to find him when elemental images in songs or paintings extend their intimate expression my way. 

      What they are about and what they mean easily incorporate the experiences we shared, bravely taking pleasure from the distress of capture with the promise of a happy, carefree child. 

Joan Silver Katsky, who spent her youth in California, is a longtime resident of New York City, where she writes poetry and fiction.