A lesson learned from a spare pair of cow’s legs…

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“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”
― Plato

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I thought they were horse’s legs, but apparently they once belonged to a cow…

and I know this is supposed to be a photo challenge but I have no photo of those legs because…

I just didn’t think of taking one at the time…

and if I had thought of it, I probably wouldn’t have done it.

Why?

Well,

in that instance several pairs of rather judgmental eyes were upon me.

It was both exciting and boring.

I was excited about the legs,

they were weird

and because they were weird they were wonderful,

and because they were wonderful in a weird way I was excited…

and…

I made the usual mistake of sharing my love for the unusual with people who prefer those who love the usual and share their distaste for the unusual as then everyone can make that humming noise people make when they all agree to disagree about the same thing which disgusts and disagrees with them.

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Their attitude towards my excitement was boring.

The one who made the most disgusted grunt with their expression was the person who owned the legs – I think they were disgusted with themselves for having bought them from whoever they bought them from…

this all happened in a shop which sells antiques, collectibles, retro stuff, junk, curios…

I wasn’t there for the legs,

not those ones anyway,

but I would have bought them…

Why didn’t I,

then at least I could have shared a photo of them…

was it because it became impossible to buy them due to having to do so through a wall of judgment…

if I was younger that would have definitely been the reason,

just as I sometimes bought into things (even things which meant nothing to me) because of peer pressure, I often bought out of things for the same reason (even things which meant a lot to me)…

but

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no…

I didn’t buy them because I just didn’t… need them.

They did however freely give me something which unusual things tend to do when you appreciate them and their existence beyond the usual.

They reminded me of myself, of a facet of myself which I’d sort of forgotten in recent times because I just did…n’t need to remember it.

That spare pair of legs taught me a lesson…

took me for a walk on their wild side…

reminded me of my wild side,

and those parts of ourselves which we sometimes see as being spares that we don’t need and perhaps would be better off without because… other people look at us with that hum of – what use could you have for such a thing – and – what is wrong with you for liking something we don’t like.

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If they hated those legs so much, why didn’t they give them to me as I loved them…

I would have taken the thorn in their paw out of their paw so they could live comfortably ever after not being reminded of things which disgust and disagree with them to a place where they were appreciated for all the reasons they were being unappreciated.

But sometimes we hang on to things we hate so that we can hate something and feel better about ourselves for hating it, especially when our hate bonds us with others who hate it too.

It was also a talking point…

And…

They wanted to make money out of those legs (they wanted those legs to have legs that walked all the way to the cash register or bank), the kind of money which makes you feel better about spending yours on something you wished you hadn’t and making someone else pay for your mistake so you can pretend it wasn’t a mistake you made, it’s one someone else made and weren’t you clever for selling them a mistake and profiting from it! What a fool they are!

Oh, yes, I am a fool and… enjoy looking at me that way while it lasts.

To be fair to them… one of them did offer to throw those legs in for free if I bought something else (but by that time I didn’t want to buy anything from anyone ever again for awhile), and he did give me a sly – don’t let the others know this but I rather like those legs too – look.

What legs… I mean lesson… did those legs give me?

They reminded me that I love to shock people…

I used to do it as a rebellious gesture… and as full as that felt, as far as it seemed to allow me to run, wild and free and giving people the finger as I ran away from them to places where they didn’t want to follow (because really who wants to chase someone into a snake and alligator infested swamp for a swim in murky waters), it was really rather an empty gesture much of the time, and at the end of the day caused more trouble than it solved.

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Or I’d do it as a means to make what seemed boring to me be more exciting… instead of sitting here being all prim and proper let’s do the can-can! Why not order dessert first then we’ll have plenty of room for it! Why can’t Space Ghost be my role model, why do I have to stick to female role models just because I’m female! Black is my favourite colour and it doesn’t mean I’m a serial killer, but if you insist that it does maybe you should be my first victim, help a child out on the career path you’ve decided they’re supposed to walk! No, I don’t want to give the toothfairy my teeth, I want to keep them and make a necklace out of them!

And, of course… I used to do it… accidentally… thinking I was being normal and finding that my normal was considered abnormal. I still have those sort of accidents, but now that I’m older I’m better at cleaning up after myself (in other words I don’t try to clean up afterwards, I just leave the mess).

While I was thinking about this incident with the cow’s legs…

I recalled another incident involving legs – when I first started sharing photos I’d taken online some random person contacted me and asked me if I’d be willing to send them a photo of my legs for ‘artistic purposes connected to an art project’.  They realised the request was kind of creepy and would understand if I ignored their request… which I did.

Whenever you think you’ll never meet someone as weird as you are… you meet them, and perhaps rejoice or perhaps… you strap on a pair of cow’s legs and gallop as far away from them as you can…

you’re the only one allowed to be a freak in this town!

because your freak is normal to you…

just as someone else’s freak is normal to them…

but may be abnormal to others when you share it with them, and that may cause you to lose a bit of yourself…

or gain a new pair of legs…

or not.

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“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. – is sure to be noticed.”
― Søren Kierkegaard