The office was busy but smooth leaving frequent lulls in activities and engaging tasks. I struggled with my wandering, daydreaming mind. My office manager (and BFF) being off for the day compounded my distraction. I had no one to talk to, chat with, listen to or share with. It seemed I had a lot to share; I felt like I wanted to talk non-stop about my long weekend. We saw movies. I baked a peach cobbler. I played dollhouse with my future house. I picked up my latest quilt project from Miss Bonnie. So much happened, so much unexpected. So, I just chatted away inside my head like a silly 9 year old girl with an imaginary friend. I never had an imaginary friend. It might have made for a less solitary childhood. My childhood brokered minimal daydreaming, instead we “playing outside”. Sitting still for too long and looking “bored” earned the declaration, “If you don’t find something to do, I’ll find something for you.” Out the door we went.The directive remains firmly intact even now as adults. My sisters and I buck the stillness, squirm in the “I need to do something” spaces because being still and daydreaming was so foreign.
Nature is a great distraction. But…I was stuck in the office. So, I chattered away inside my head, filling a script of answers and responses. The problem? None of that is real. You can’t build castles on sand. Just as it devastates a child to be brutally separated from their imaginary friend, it is foolish to construct a two way dialogue. So, once I finished at the office, I went and played outside. I walked at the track until the black thunderheads amassed in the southeast and the rumbles of thunder drove me home. I ate my Monday salad and decided that sitting at home in a quiet house was dumb. TV is always dumb. Sitting in front of the computer is worse than watching a fish tank because there is this expectation that SOMEONE IS OUT THERE. So, I headed out to the house. I dragged my $20 turquoise Adirondack chair onto my back porch and watched the lightening flash and the listened to the low distant rumbles. The light faded and the cicadas’ chirping rose, a prelude to the lightening bugs arriving. My back yard is a colony for the flashing, flying insects. Out there, in my back yard, surrounded by the bug sounds and the falling night, the chatter in my head finally stopped. I don’t need an imaginary friend. Reality is perfectly fine. It’s not always easy; its often lonely…but it is tangible. If I want fantasy, I’ll read a book. What I want is to be real, like Pinocchio….a real girl.