CHAPTER 5: HERMIT CRABS
His marriage in question after his world is broken, Peter finds clarity in Rebecca Solnit’s rumination on hermit crabs.
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Hermit Crabs
Peter Bruun
2019, 15”x22”, watercolor, gouache & pencil on paper
Heading to my lunch spot, I pass children on holiday. The season has changed.
It’s not so much that I fell out of love with one as I fell in love with another. I had no story for that, no solace or explanation – until reading Rebecca Solnit.
“Many love stories are like the shells of hermit crabs.”
Her allegory resonates for me.
“The hermit crab: grabbing on one side and clinging on the other. Eventually the creature outgrows the shell, and thus comes the risky moment called the molt, when the crab is between shells.”
I draw that hermit crab (I draw myself) – between here and there, between love stories – “soft and vulnerable.”