Mickey Mouse & Bending Time

I really want to make more space on this blog for miscellaneous thoughts and things, so that maybe the whole thing can feel sometimes more like a journal than a blog. When I was a kid I really wanted one of those weird electronic secret diaries. The idea of a hidden world all my own, in notebook form, was wildly appealing to me, and on many levels still is, even though basically I make stuff in that form totally public now (because ultimately I find that more rewarding, to write something and unleash it into the ether, or something).

Mickey Mouse in Plane Crazy (1928). Alternatively, me when I first see myself after waking up.

For a while I was so into minimalism as a concept. Owning less and having less clutter in your physical spaces as well as, maybe, in your mind, fascinated me. The idea that you can kinda be fuller with less stuff. That making space around you means you can fill that space with a more fundamental self. We all need space, after all, to be ourselves and to keep all our thoughts and core parts of the way we want to be. I think in terms of writing or making things, or expressing myself in general, it feels great to throw it all out into the open. I like to stick paintings to my walls, or send them to people. Once they're out there, they're far away and gone, and I can just make, write, think, and focus on something new. My most new self gets to thrive.

Mickey Mouse in The Mad Doctor (1933). He's been changed to be much cuter than his earliest iteration here, and this is my favourite design/style for Mickey compared to the earlier and later versions.

That said, I like to keep a host of memories. The best parts of things that make me happy. I don't cling onto items that much, but I also let myself hold and enjoy things. I let things be there and remind me of something. Remind me that I'm not all new and I don't have to be, maybe. Because there's some pressure to rewrite yourself, or at least, I feel it somewhere. I want to be the best I can be, after all. I want to make people laugh with new jokes, and sing new songs, and make new memories and new meaning. But it's okay to keep all those old things in your heart too, right? Good or bad, or neither.

Mickey being terrorised by a skeleton, again from The Mad Doctor (1933).

I've been watching really early Mickey Mouse cartoons, and there's something I like so much about them. The way they bend, and the surreal, expressive nature of them. The completely different charm that Mickey has before he becomes so rounded and colourful. Yet parts of them are less satisfying in some ways too. It's that way with almost everything.

Mickey in The Haunted House (1929).

I love the endlessness of change, but I fear it too. It would be nice to stop time at a perfect moment and to be that person in it forever, but at the same time the oscillations of time's passing are like glittering rings I have to fly through. I don't know. It's all a process. A constant decluttering and collecting.