Nodding Panda

I confess to liking—perhaps more than I should—doodads, gimcracks, and tchotchkes. I even like the words themselves for being so felicitous. Sometimes, though, I attribute unreasonable powers to these objects of my unreasonable affection, and they become charms.

Consider the case of Nodding Panda. I bought him at Mitsuwa, our local Japanese market, ostensibly because I thought my students would enjoy watching the light-activated toy nod away on my desk. And, indeed, they were amused by him all school year long, at which point I brought him home to spend the summer on the desk in my study.

Now that school is starting again, I have a problem. For two months, Nodding Panda has kept me company while I wrote, mused, emailed, drafted, planned, fumed, doubted, despaired, deleted, and recovered. I often looked to his dependably nodding countenance for the wherewithal to continue when what I was doing seemed pointless. His little mechanical head kept telling me Yes, or Keep going, or That was pretty damn good, wasn’t it? He was quiet, encouraging company, and I no longer want to share him in my public workplace.

But, I will share him with you. When you find yourself doubting the enterprise of writing or your ability to carry on with it, conjure up the image of Nodding Panda. He is telling you to finish that paragraph or page, before you go to the refrigerator. He is saying, Good things come of hard work. He is cheering you on, and any kind of light keeps him going, even fluorescent.