Last night, I was thinking a bit about the creature my blog is named after. I loved the Tove Jansson books as a child, and the fillyjonks, minor characters that they were, were my favorites. Like many of her characters, they don't have individual names - they are referred to as "the fillyjonk" or as "Fillyjonk." It is unclear whether the different appearence of the character called a fillyjonk is the same character or if she (it always is a she) represents different characters.

As far as I can remember, there are three instances where the fillyjonk appears with a "speaking" part - first, as a rather-more-doglike creature in Moominsummer Madness, whose main motivation is that she is sad because her aunt and uncle have not come to celebrate Midsommar with her, even though she sent them an invitation.

The Fillyjonk also appears in "Tales from Moominvalley" as a young creature who has rented a house near the beach that she was told had belonged to an ancestor. This is "The Fillyjonk who Believed in Disasters," and is probably my favorite portrayal of the character.

Finally, one of the fillyjonks shows up in "Moominvalley in November" as a woman who at first, seems to understand her place in the universe, who has a life she enjoys, but then because of a near-tragedy, loses the ability to enjoy her life. She travels to the Moomin's house, apparently (although it's not stated in the book) as a way of trying to recover who she was or at least get away from what was frightening her. Gradually, she returns to her old patterns of life and recovers her confidence.

I could almost see these three fillyjonks as different life stages of the same "person" - first, the young girl, disappointed when her efforts to reach out to extended family are rebuffed; then as the young lady trying to make a life in the world, and finally, as a more mature woman who begins to question the role she has played. (Except for the fact that the moomins are all about the same age from the Midsummer story to the November one, and the fillyjonk would have to have aged at least 20 years, I would guess).

At any rate, the Fillyjonk Who Believed in Disasters is my favorite. She is a creature who can take any slight instance of something unfortunate, and spin it up into the foreboding of a disaster. A single dark cloud in the sky means a hurricane is coming. The wind coming up in the night means the roof will come off. A slight ache somewhere is a symptom of a horrific disease.

I can relate to the character (or, more correctly, I used to relate heavily to her, and still do to a certain extent). When I was a child, my father's favorite admonition to me was "Don't borrow trouble." I was an anxious child, the kind who tended to anticipate the worst of every situation. (I suppose if I were a child today I'd be on some God-awful anti-anxiety medication, rather than being allowed to mature through my fears to become the person I am now).

In a way, there's a benefit to being an expect-the-worst sort. I'm the person who can always find a bandage when it's needed, or who keeps canned goods and bottled water on hand. And yet, at the same time, it can be kind of exhausting to always be on the alert, to always be listening for that strange noise or keeping one eye open.

But, like the fillyjonk in the story, the real disasters (such as they are) that I have experienced come out less tragically for me than I always anticipate they will. At the end of them, I figuratively come out from behind the boulder where I was hiding, clutching the china cat, and assess how my world has changed.

In the story, the fillyjonk decides that she is not going to rebuild the ruins of the house that actually never belonged to a relative of her. She is cheeky to that social climber, Gaffsie, and at the end of the story, she sits down in the sand of the beach and weeps with laughter.

The story ends there - it doesn't say what became of the fillyjonk. When I was a child, I liked to imagine that she took some of the lumber from the ruined house and built herself a treehouse, or that she went off and found a snug little cave to furnish and care for, and that instead of worrying about all the cleaning and all the social proprieties, that she became an artist or a gardener or something like that.

I guess, in a way, I still do relate to the character, but perhaps more to what she became in my mind after the last page of the story, rather than the fearful, confined creature that lived in a big dark house.

I got to thinking about that whole thing partly because of the upcoming anniversary - the one no U.S. resident can ignore, no matter how much they might want to. I remember some of the thoughts that went through my head that day (can it really be two years ago?) - first, I genuinely thought the world was coming to an end and that I and everyone I loved would be dead soon. The second thought was that there would be massive food/gas/water/medicine rationing and that life would be never as I had known it again. I remember watching the television that day - all the channels had either news coverage or a simple screen stating they were off the air "in memory of those who died." I remember the intense foreboding I felt as I waited in line to fill my car with too-expensive gas just-in-case. I remember the sense of futility I felt as I taught probability to my biostatistics students, asking myself "where, in the strange new world we will have to live in, will this have any importance?"

And yet, few of the horrible things I envisioned came to pass. Yes, 3000 some people never came home. Yes, one person that I know died in the towers. But the USA still exists, we have not seen civilization crumble, the majority of US residents can go on living pretty much as they lived before.

And yet, one thing that has happened, is that when I see the footage again, or hear people talking about the event, is that the old fearful creature in me - the one whose imagination can spin up a giant, deadly vortex of disorder from reported events - comes awake, and begins to scrabble about and speculate about whether I should go and buy some bottled water, or make sure my gas tank is filled.

It is strange to look back at the worrier I used to be (well, I admit it - I still AM, to a certain extent, but nowhere near as bad as I was) and to see how easily I could let myself fall back into that old fearful way. To go from the jolly fillyjonk who has built her own safe little house, who cultivates a garden and makes her own sweaters and little caps, back to the Fillyjonk who Believed in Disasters, cowering in the jam-cupboard and wondering what will become of the doilies if the roof blows off and the rain comes in.