I'm in my parents' living room, at some family reunion. I don't talk much, just sit by their big back window, looking out over Silicon Valley and the Bay.

A large animal crosses the lawn, carrying a limp skunk or big black squirrel in its mouth. The animal's big, maybe a hundred pounds, much too lithe for a bear, too stocky for a wolf, rather like a raccoon but far too big. It has long, luxuriant fur, striped cream and cinnamon. Unsure just WHAT it is--till it detaches from its fur, leaves the thick coat absent-mindedly behind as it slips off on a side trip thru the flowers! It--no, she--is a feral child! With a heavy fur coat for disguise.

Or IS she human? Even away from her fur coat she has a short neat pelt like a seal, and she's a bit too fast and natural as a quadruped. Beautiful in her nonhuman way, even sexy.

I watch quietly, don't want to spook her. She explores the yard, then takes her lunch in her teeth again and slinks out past the back fence again.

To meet her mentors! Looming figures masked in heavy furs, who lean down and scold her a bit. She chitters back, defensive. I think she's going through a rite of passage by entering human territory, and they're displeased she let her outer fur slip...

Even thru the noise in the living room and the glass and the language and species barrier, I can recognize nagging: "You ran out from under your fur! You let a HUMAN see your inner pelt!"

But they're wrong. She was safe enough, showing herself to me.

Just luck, or did she sense I'm like her--in disguise?

Passing for human.

THE ANSWERS

Dead skunk lunch: I was very hungry, going home through ehe park. Saw a roadkill skunk, and for a moment thought "lunch!" then "Oh, wait, I'm a vegetarian this time around, and it might have parasites, and it's raw, and..."

PBS documentary comparing Jeannie, a severely neglected child found in LA, with the Wild Boy of Aveyron, a truly feral child who Truffaut made a film about--THE WILD CHILD.

I grew up unsocialized--identify with both Jeannie and Truffaut's wolf boy.

Under the fur, a pelt not human skin: my posing as a shaman and psychic doesn't cover up a damaged/feral human self, but a healthy nonhuman self!

Seal-pelt = shapeshifting. Celtic "selkies", were-seals, have this. Proof she's neither human nor animal.

ACTION: My inner nature is not very human! So don't expect to change too much. Seek a place in the world on my terms, NOT human ones.

I do long to bare myself, even though it's risky. But not always...here I/she picked a safe witness. Can I do this out in the world, sense those who are like me?

Or will I just cast off my fur and go naked in the Net, letting humans snipe at me?

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