The other day, something hit me. Now, this is not news, really. Not at all. But the impact of this realization was stronger than it's been in maybe forever: I live in a dream world. Like, all the time.
I can stare out the passenger window of a car (passenger window; I drive quite attentively, really I do) and be a million miles away. (When my husband's driving. If it's anybody else I feel less freedom and thus more duty to make conversation.) This dreaming goes way back, of course. When I was in sixth grade, and the in thing to do was play dodge ball every day at lunch recess, I always played, if by "played" you mean pranced around my side of the court and, on such rare occasions as I'd catch the ball, lobbed it with no particular aim at the opposing team. But that wasn't the real game, as far as I was concerned. Because, the whole time, I was observing the kids as characters and noticing how they threw the ball. One girl -- tall, skinny, tough -- cocked her arm straight back at waist level and threw bullets. Another, a "cute little thing," used both arms to swing the ball to her left and shot high, graceful arcs. During the game, I mind-wrote descriptions of the kids and how they handled the ball. Everyone did it differently. Everyone had their signature throw. I couldn't just play dodge ball. I couldn't even mostly play dodge ball. It wasn't that I consciously thought there wasn't enough fun in an earthbound game. It's that I mostly don't know how to do something in the concrete, physical realm only. (And maybe that's why I'm always the one who can't work contraptions.)
The real world, so concrete, so full of things and tasks and jabber, has just never had much hold on me. Rather, the events of the real world have been doors into the games I really want to play, the scenes I really want to live -- and happily do, through imagination, and sometimes, I think, through spiritual, if not physical, reality.
Oh, and the the tall boy who didn't play dodge ball much, but the day he did, hit me "right in the numbers" with an overhand hardball that my surprised arms flew up and caught, causing my friend to scream, "Marcia? You caught that?" and causing me to zing, for once, fully into the moment? Him? He appears elsewhere in this story. Can you find him?
As for that recent event that caused me to realize how fully I live in a dream world? I can't remember what it was. The dream is ever so much more enticing.
15 comments:
Did the tall boy eventually become your husband? :-)
I can do this too, be in the moment but creating my own as I file away people and conversations and happenings that later appear in my writing.
Marcia, just today I was praying about this -- please let me live the dream. Because, I too, have lived in a dreamworld since childhood, making up scenarios.
Did you marry that boy?!!!
Perception is reality?
We understand in stories, and make our lives into more stories. Only G-d is real, at least that's my perception...
Yup, he's the husband in paragraph 2. :)
Barbara -- Do you ever wonder what it's like NOT to live this way?
Vijaya -- Joining you...
Mirka -- Love that line "We understand in stories." So true!
That's why you are such a good writer!
Wow, so you guys are childhood sweethearts! So, so neat. I was always in my head at school(particularly during boring lectures) though I did like to 'emerge' for playground time, or as I got older, gym. Weirdly enough, now that I'm and adult, I sometimes miss gym class... But not the locker rooms! *ew*
Thank goodness for our dream world escapes. I don't think I could handle the real world full time! :-) Very telling that you caught that ball!!!
Leandra -- Well, we didn't really know each other then. And, for a few years after that, didn't like each other much, either. :) I liked gym in the early elementary grades, but not once I got to 7th and beyond.
Kim -- Yes, that's why we have story in so many forms -- TV, movies, video games. I once listened to a guy tell me he thought fiction was worthless, but 30 seconds later was extolling Clint Eastwood westerns. (Insert eye roll.)
I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm always in my head daydreaming and thinking about things unrelated to where I currently am.
I love the allusion with the tall boy. Husband, right? :) I confess, I was always fully vested when I played dodge ball. Probably the girl who threw bullets . . . but now I do enjoy the people watching. Perhaps I need to do it a little more. :) Loved the story!
I live in a dream world too. Growing up, teachers would comment that I rarely spoke, but was very thoughtful. I'm glad they could recognize the difference between that and zoning out.
I understand. I'm always describing the scene in front of me the way I'd write it in a story. (Silently, of course.)
Janet -- At the time, I didn't know what it meant!
Medeia -- Right. Related or unrelated to the present, there's always a dream element!
Janet -- Yup, that's him. :) Maybe you're more of an athlete than I. Most everyone is. :)
Ruth -- Me, too, on both counts.
LD -- Yes!
Thank goodness for car rides, because they are very good for daydreaming. Admittedly, I'm also a daydreamer when riding as well as driving (yikes!), but it hasn't gotten me in trouble yet. I love your dodgeball story! That was the best recess game.
Dawn -- Also, this is kind of the advantage to anything boring: Daydream time.
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