My mom taught school for 32 years. She also did EVERYTHING for me, my brother and 3 sisters that simply had to be done. She cooked supper. She helped with homework. She did all the laundry (without a clothes dryer for many years). Mom did the grocery shopping and drove us around to the movies and the mall or the skating rink. She was amazing at handling the family finances on a shoestring budget. My list of her activities could go on and on. The older I get the more it impresses me. It is exhausting…
That is why I marvel that she managed to have any funny or cute memories of me (child #3) much less photos! But my favorite story that my mother tells about me captures my essence pretty well. It goes like this. One day I was playing outside with my cousin, Mikey who happened to live next door to us. I had to be less than 3 years old because when I turned 4 we moved to a new house. Anyway, Mikey comes running inside all excited saying Aunt June, Aunt June Judy is saying bad words. Mom asked what was I saying? She said LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. Mikey was a little younger than me so maybe that accounts for his interpretation… He also told my mom that I said LETS PLAY PRETEND. That’s the part that really tickles my mom. Such bad words!!! CUTE. I love this story too because it reminds me that I was heavy into using my imagination at a young age.
By grade school I was staring out the window most of the day ( thank goodness for overcrowded classrooms and overtaxed nuns) and my head was full of anything but what the teacher was going on about. Outside I was looking at clouds for bunnies or elephants and the like. On the playground we played HOUSE outlining bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms with rocks and stones picked up from the ground. I did the same thing at home with my sisters, cousins and neighbors. So simple and so much fun. I can’t remember if I ever got to play the mom or dad. Lead roles. We played ‘baby dolls’ for hours on end and, of course, Me and Ken and Barbie were a regular threesome… By high school my daydreaming was spent on boy crushes and mod 60’s fashion. What to wear to the next Friday night dance ( in a gymnasium!). My creativity was conventional but abundant. More quantity than quality. And it was the one thing that sustained me through the normal loneliness and feelings of being different that all kids experience from time to time.
During my twenties things got a little out of hand and my imagination and daydreams took me to some dark places ( I promise to get around to that in another platica). Looking back some 40+ years I’m certain that it was also that very same imagination and daydreams that that pulled me OUT of that BLACK HOLE.
Our imagination and our dreams seem to be the most powerful things that we possess. It seems they are the fuel of the human race. Where would we be without Walt Disney and Steven Spielberg? Hollywood and social media? Coca Cola commercials and music, music, MUSIC! Images of beauty and fun, adventure, excitement and bliss drench our daily experiences in one form or another. It is what we use to create better and better and richer and deeper happiness. If you have only one hope for the planet and the humans running the show let it be our individual and collective happy, healthy and wholesome capacity for dreams and using our imagination. I do!
My World My Words 