the-fu.com (gameplans for dreamers): Zen and the Art of Plastic Bag Imitation

Zen and the Art of Plastic Bag Imitation

Who can say why what catches one’s eye catches one’s eye? But one woman’s junk is another one’s treasure. And, for reasons I can explain- wait, I can explain!- it was the plastic bags that first made me feel salamat datang. We were at the night market when first I spotted them, sparkling on a twilight curb. She was just an ordinary shopper, a Malaysian woman in her mid-to-late fifties, laden with much too much of the stuff they stuff in such, but was, in my eyes, so transformed by the way the light- the moonlight, the streetlight, the headlight! - did light upon her and her wresting of those rustling bags that scarcely could I look away! Pinks and melons and electric blues- how do they make such delectable hues?! And a green like the glimmering grass trapped beneath morning dew! Oh, those rose-colored glasses bags! And therein the aquatic glints of wet fish did press hard dead eyes against liquid insides- frothed bags churning like the ocean itself, kindling a citrine glow deep within. I was undone.

“What,” amusedly, “exactly is it that you see in them?,” my Best Expat queried.

“Oh,” shrugged I, “I… well… they’re pretty.”

“Really?!” My friend was stunned, and so, apparently, was I. But, really. Those pretty plastic bags were quite unlike anything I’d ever…

But now that I’ve got them cornered here on my kitchen floor, puddled up in a plastic pool of bubblegum-colored toxicity, I’m not so sure. Here at home, they seem destined for little more than unmentionable entries in a cross-country unpopularity contest. What an embarrassing display! And to think I traversed my own plastic baggage back twelve time zones only to rediscover this disconcerting behind-the-times mess.

But before I detest, I should take pictures, yes? Yes! As a test, take pictures- for posterity, and that with temerity, to prove my tiny point.

My point? What’s that? Only that I am not a plastic bag. And that, for the record, neither is Anya Hindmarch. But life does imitate art. And art does imitate life, or so Time will sadly tell. Yet there may also be moments where stuff that is neither life nor art imitates something that nearly transcends the two. It’s true. But you have to look for those moments, you!

Because everyone knows plastic bags are bad for people. And everyone knows plastic bags are bad for the environment, too. It’s true. Still, maybe they could be good for something. Who can say? Maybe you, me, and plastic will be an inspiration someday.

So keep your eyes peeled . Because you never know.