The story of a certain rabbit

When Alena was a little girl, she knew that toys were alive. They didn’t always speak — some whispered. Some stayed silent but held her wrist when she stood in long clinic lines or fell off her bike.

Then Alena grew up. But she still knew. Only the silence got louder, and people got harder to understand.

Alena has Asperger’s. It’s not a diagnosis — it’s a different way of being. A way of sensing more deeply, seeing more clearly, speaking more honestly. Of noticing the things others miss. Of feeling at home in silence and slightly alien in noise.

One evening, just outside Marjanishvili metro, in the dust and blare of the city, she saw him — a plush rabbit with crooked ears and button eyes. He cost 10 lari. She bought him without a word. Because he looked at her like no one else.

The rabbit had no name, but he had a soul. And he knew where home was. He whispered it to her. Home is not a place with walls. It’s where you are heard without speaking. Where your quiet is music. Where your strangeness is not a flaw but a form of light.

Now, Alena teaches yoga at giraffehome — a space born from the idea that everyone deserves a place where they feel at ease. She teaches not only adults but also autistic children. Where others need language, Alena meets them with presence.

She knows what it’s like to feel “not quite from here” — and to sense the world more intensely than it wants to admit.

Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern… the whole world is a work of art

— Virginia Woolf

Behind the fuzz of everyday life — a pattern. Not everyone sees it. But Alena does. And she teaches others to see. And when she teaches, the rabbit sits quietly by her side. Not speaking. But holding her wrist.