proportion.

there is, as most may know, a Huge floor piano on the second floor of the infamous toy store f.a.o schwartz in new york city, that is played with one's feet by jumping up and down on keys that light up accordingly. it's bigger than most of the children transfixed by it, one of the few toys they can't pick up and take home. it was staring at this piano last week that prompted a few ruminations on the nature of proportion.

for the most part, the strange thing about being a kid is being so much bigger than all of your toys. it's the only time on earth you have control over the cars, the trains, the highrise buildings, the houses, the landscape. to tower above so much during a single-digit age is truly an accomplishment, and one made so effortlessly. the gargantuan hand of a 6 year old propels the train through the mountains, crosses the planet with the spin of a globe. take the driver out of the car, throw him across the room, put a new one in, voila! no more drinking and driving!
if a little lego man could drink, that is.

no wonder we get so cocky by the time we are teenagers. we've been ruling the world for a decade or more already.

then it hits. we keep getting bigger, but so do the buildings, so do the cars, so do the trains. suddenly we have become our own toys...the cars are big enough to step into and drive around in, but also big enough to break our bicycle in an unfortunate collision with them.
and the larger toys are expensive. mum and dad were there to finance the doll house, but markedly absent in meetings with the real-estate agent. blood and hunger become realities. jack and jill never bled, but when i tumble down a hill i skin my knee and break my own crown. there's no supranatural hand to propel me onwards, it's been replaced by the cravings of my stomach.

suddenly, despite our growth, our toys tower above us, breathe their own toxins into our lungs, re-organize us, run us down...

— yet so many of us run around like we're still in control.

how odd.