As February unfolded, the Alice in Wonderland references in my life continued to emerge. I began to work my way through the second story Through the Looking Glass, a sequel noted for charming chess-board pieces and an irreverent play at logic and convention. One striking moment of synchronicity was when I realized that even the squirrel calendar by my workstation at home was aligned to the theme. This particular calendar was a favorite of my dad’s, always hanging by his computer, and there it was, February 2026’s theme: two squirrels locked in a match of chess. “Curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice would say. There were other coincidences, too, though they slipped through my grasp and out of my mind at the time.
Despite knowing the fundamental moves of chess, I remain a rudimentary player. And yet, I spent hours as a child playing with my father’s feautiful felt-bottomed wooden set. I can still feel the satisfying, smooth texture of the pieces and my fingers tracing over their carved contours.
I am nearly through the looking-glass now.
I have been captivated by its curious inhabitants. Each character operates within a self-contained logic that belongs to them alone; they live in their own private bubbles, defined by unique ways of experiencing and interpreting reality. Which, come to think of it, are hyperbolic versions of our own human experience. It is no wonder they struggle so deeply to communicate with one another; perhaps their rigid, literal speech is simply a desperate attempt to bridge that gap.
The land itself shares this instability, with warped flows of time and space where landscapes and backdrops shift as Alice moves from one “square” to the next. The chapters are a series of vignettes loosely connected in space and time, mirroring the way my own memories are catalogued – the “in between” inconsequential bits fade, leaving only the between the breathtakingly vivid, sensory laden moments behind. I’ll keep generating memories, until, I suppose, there are no moves on the chessboard.
The author was pleased to see her name in the White Knight’s poem today as she continued her Looking Glass odyssey.