Shapeshift 1
We meet over lunch under a large glass dome and the rain on the edge of Vondel Park in Amsterdam.
I want to talk to my friend and fellow writer, Gina Miroula, about shapeshifting. About the freedom to change shape and structure and become something finned, furred or feathered. But her thoughts go straight to skin. Human skin and very human emotions:
Does Shapeshifting include access to thoughts? Does someone have to be dead before you can shapeshift into her? Sometimes I want to shapeshift into women who are really close to me. Every period in my life is marked by a specific woman. The first time I fell in love, for example, I was 14 and intrigued by my father’s neighbour. Or back in high school, my tousled but charming English teacher. And years later, the enchanting mother of the boy I used to babysit. Even now, with my own girlfriend, sitting on the sofa in the evenings, I can’t tell what she’s thinking most of the time.
So . . . shapeshifting into an animal or an object, like they do in Harry Potter or Twilight, I’m not so interested in that. I’d prefer to shapeshift into the very idea of women. I want to experience what it feels like inside their heads. Get to know what makes them passionate or sad. I want to know their dreams and how they experience love. But also, what they think of me. It might sound a little narcissistic, but aren’t we all a little narcissistic somewhere?
When I imagine shapeshifting into another person, I think more of deceit than curiosity. Of stealing someone’s identity to achieve a certain end. Of turning into someone to do something because you can’t make them do it for you.
If we are talking magical powers, I’d rather be able to read someone’s mind to know their thoughts than have to take them on body and soul…
Sophie Jack Crow, the middle grade novel I’m writing, is about a family of women who come from a line of people who can shapeshift into crows. Crows are associated with death and dark power, insight and prophecy, wisdom and cunning. The characters in Sophie Jack Crow have to understand what it means to be Crow on the inside before they can shift into that form and use some of Crow’s power in the outer world. The physical act of shapeshifting is proof that a character understands her essential nature and chooses to use it in the world.
I ask Gina if her essential self were patterned into a life form other than human, what it would be. Animal, vegetable, mineral – or something from a different realm altogether? I like to think I'd be the blue in the eye of a peacock feather. But that's not quite right, at least, not all the time. Sometimes I feel more like the blue sheen on labradorite – that strange stone that feels like it’s come from a different world, or maybe, even, fallen from the moon.
That’s what I like about you. The woman and writer I came to know over the past four years is full of magical ideas. To me you are a bit out of this world, dreamy in a way. I value the way you think and talk about life, because it sometimes sounds like you live on a different planet.
But, to get back to your question, I would choose an animal that uses its power to get to know someone in an intimate way. Did you know Greek mythology is full of shapeshifting? Zeus transformed into a bull to seduce the Phoenician princess Europa. So I would choose an animal that has the chance of being close to these special women in my life. Maybe a lazy red house cat, or a parrot on someone’s shoulder. I would cuddle and snuggle for hours.
Many of the women turned animal, flower, star or stone at the whim of a Greek God could never turn human again. I don’t think I’d like to be a cat or a parrot forever. I’d want to have the ability to shift back and forth at will. That would be fun. Winged when you wanted to fly. Finned when you wanted to swim across an ocean or dive deep into dreams. What if you could harness the power of an animal to use at will? A creature whose strengths and skills you already have or admire. What animal would that be?
An octopus.
Last month I saw a documentary on octopuses. They are very intelligent. Did you know they have a short and long-term memory, and every one of their eight tentacles can think for itself. They can open jars from the inside, defend themselves with rocks, mimic other poisonous sea creatures to scare the hell out of other predators. It’s a pity their lifespan is short. I would like to live at least until I’m 120.
Better be a star then, flung into high constellation. Or a redwood tree. Or a whale, maybe. I’m told the longest living animal is a clam. They found one off the coast of Iceland that was over 507 years old shut tight at the bottom of the sea. I doubt you’d want to be that. Imagine all your fire locked tight in a tiny white shell for all time. A pale fleck at the edge of the imagination of an Ocean. A dream of a dream inside the dream of the ultimate shapeshifter – far away from parrots or skin.
Gina Miroula (1990) writes prose, reviews and interviews. She has published in Het Parool, Cineville, I Amsterdam and literary platform ABCyourself. When she grows up, she wants to write fiction like her favourite writer, Nicole Krauss, does. Stories about magical realism. Preferably on a houseboat with a large wooden desk and a view of the Amsterdam canals.