Mrs. Franzos: Follow The White Rabbit

Thursday, February 19, 2015

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

I'm always on the hunt for the elusive, white rabbit and it all started with Walt Disney's animated adaptation of Lewis Carroll's novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I watched it so much as a child, I wore out the VHS tape. When I was older, my parents introduced me to Jefferson Airplane's song, Go Ask Alice. When I was older still, the literature reference popped up again in The Matrix. The white rabbit is the inciting event for Alice or Neo. In story-telling terms, the inciting event is the thing that sparks their curiosity and sets their stories, officially in motion.

My story officially started years ago, but for the sake of this post, we're going to flash forward, to a point in my life where I had some serious problems with the way it was playing out. I won't bore you with my Dickensian story of woe, but just know that we're talking full-on, existential crisis mode. And then,

a white rabbit appeared.

and.

I followed him.

I'm talking symbolically, of course. I didn't *actually* see a white rabbit at the darkest point of my life. But I did see a chance and I pursued it. I went head-first, down the rabbit hole (so to speak) and came out the other side, stronger and happier than I've ever known.

A changed person. A grateful woman.

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

But then, something weird started happening. I actually started seeing the white rabbit. It started when I began writing during my lunch hours everyday. I'd run over to the library, find my window seat in the quiet WWII section, and pour my heart out onto the pages of my moleskine notebook. One day, many weeks later, I looked up from a nearly full notebook and saw the white rabbit right on the library bookshelf (it was a book titled, The White Rabbit). I knew right then and there, that it was a sign that I was on the right path.

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

My grandfather's initials. photo credit: Joshua Franzos

My mother's watch. photo credit: Joshua Franzos

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

I see the white rabbit everywhere now and I try to document most of it on my Instagram account. I know it sounds positively crazy, but I don't care. He's a personal totem for me--a weird symbol of the unknown. A sign that I'm where I should be, doing exactly what I'm doing. I trust that he'll always send me on a merry journey where I will see cool things, meet interesting people, and have great stories to tell afterward. Do you have any personal totems, symbols, or signs that encourage you? I want to hear about them in the comments below.

Your Bosom Friend From Pittsburgh,