My Imaginary Life

The first topic for the new Writer's Island site, is "My Imaginary Life." This might run a little long - my imaginary life and I have a long history together...

Long before I started school, I discovered there was another whole universe, one with another 'me' in it. Another life really - one where I could be or say or do, anything I dreamed of...I was only four or five, at the most, when we visited my aunt in another state. That's where I was, the morning I found my imaginary life, my other 'me.'

I awakened shortly after dawn that first morning at my aunt's house. Being in a different part of the country, it seemed the sun hit the window at a strange, new angle. The pillow was doughy, and the cot was lumpy in places and ways that my bed at home never thought of being. My aunt's coffee percolator bubbled and perked to itself in a different rhythm, than my mother's coffee wake-up call.  Even the morning bird chorus sang in foreign languages there. Everything seemed so unusual that morning, it seemed as though the day itself, were setting the stage for my other imaginary me,  to make her appearance from her other universe.

As the adults groggily sat down around the table, clutching their first cups of coffee to them like life preservers, they wearily nodded and grunted their assent when I bounced through the kitchen, clamoring to go outside and play.

Still in my summer pajama shorts and t-shirt, with my long hair tangled from the night, I shoved my rubber flip-flops on my feet, and ran out, letting the wooden-framed screendoor bang shut behind me. I barely heard the grown-ups calling out to me, to Please, shut the door - Quietly! I was so busy drinking in this foreign landscape with my eyes.

We'd arrived in the dark of the night before - my grandfather had carried me in, my sleepy head on his shoulder. It was too dark and I had been too drowsy to see much that night - so I was excited to see this whole new world by the light of day. The land looked flat, and the sun shone bright in a cloudless blue sky, a sky that seemed bigger and wider than the one at home. I began to explore this new, uncharted territory. Towards the side of the yard, an ivy-covered arbor, beckoned me with its open doorway. I started towards it, but before I could reach it, I heard a voice calling to me over the fence.

"Hi, girl! What's your name? Want to play?"

I turned towards the rickety old picket fence, its white paint peeling in lined strips, showing the dark green paint from another year, below it. There stood another little girl, about my age, maybe a little younger, she was just a bit shorter - but not much I didn't think. Her eyes peered at me through the space between the wooden pickets, my head was barely even with the top of the picket fence, only slightly above hers. Shyly, I approached her, smiled and said a quiet little 'hi,' back.

We stood at the low picket fence, which seemed really quite high to us, and picked at the peeling paint, as we talked, exchanging the usual, bluntly to the point, introductions that children do.

Do you go to school? How old are you? Do you have any sisters or brothers? I admitted to having a sister - but I don't think I'd gotten around to telling her yet, that my sister was much older, and was still in bed sleeping in, as older kids often do. We hadn't gotten very far in our opening lines, when I was called back into the house: Come eat breakfast - for heaven's sake, child, get some clothes on! - as though I'd been streaking around the backyard in my birthday suit, instead of my pajamas.

'I'll come back out to play soon!' I promised the girl, as I hurried inside to obey my grandmother.

I rushed through breakfast, despite my grandmother's entreaties to Please slow down, and chew before you choke! Then brushed my teeth and dressed in record time. I was almost out the door, when my grandmother snagged me back by the collar, and sat me down in the chair, to 'do' my hair. At that age, my hair hadn't been cut often. Though fine, it was long, tangled easily, and there was a lot of it to detangle. I sat in front of her, impatiently swinging my feet, till  my head would jerk back as my hair caught in the brush, while my grandmother sighed and raked it through all the tangles. Finishing it off, she pulled it all up into a ponytail at the top of my head, wrapping it tightly with a snap! of the rubber band.

Free to move at last, I rushed outside to my new friend - once again, letting the screen door bang shut to the protests behind me - I apologized and ran on - after all, the girl had been standing waiting this whole long time.

There she was - she had waited for me! I rushed up, calling out Hi! as I ran, no longer feeling shy - we'd talked already, hadn't we? But my new friend acted as though she'd never seen me before.

'Where's your sister?'

My sister? Huh? She hadn't even met my sister yet - she was just now getting up, I explained.

'No - the other girl, I just met. Who are you - what's your name?'

This went on for a few minutes - I couldn't convince the girl, that I was the same little girl she'd met, half an hour before. Now that my hair was in a ponytail, and I was dressed in decent playclothes, it seemed I looked nothing at all like my earlier self. No matter what I said, I couldn't convince my new friend, that I was me - the same girl she'd met just a while ago.  Finally, in desperation for us to just be able to play already - I decided to just stop fighting it, and play along. Despite all the warnings I'd had about not letting my imagination run wild, not to tell tall tales - I went with it. I gave this mythical alter ego, this supposed other sister, her own name, a variation of my own. Where was she? Oh, well she couldn't come out to play right now, she - um, she'd gotten in trouble.

What did she do? I was momentarily stumped - then I came up with something, I sometimes wished I could let myself be bad enough to do - my sassy little alter ego, she'd taken the dreaded, hated hairbrush away from our grandma, and thrown it across the room! 

No! Did she really? My new friend was clearly horrified. That other little girl looked like she was nice - was she really that bad?

Oh, yes, I replied - she has a terrible temper!

The more she asked, the more I went on, for quite some time, gossiping about this mild-looking, but wild child 'sister' of mine. This 'other' me, began to take on a life of her own. Apparently, she did any number of things, things that the good girl, the quiet, shy me would never dream of doing in real life.

Before that day, I had pretended with my dolls, my pets, my cousins and other kids, but that day I was empowered to soar in my own imagination. It was the real beginning of my imaginary life. Even though paid for it later, the next day, for all the fibs I'd told, as the truth eventually, inevitably unfolded. But I think in its own convoluted way, maybe it might have been worth it in the long run. That was the day, I discovered that I could let my imagination take me to wherever I wanted, to say or do as it pleased - as long as I remembered to keep my imaginary exploits to myself.

My imaginary self, who was born that day, could do anything. On long, lonely summer days, she gave me the confidence to train my grandmother's poodles to do tricks, to jump through hula hoops and climb the slide in our backyard (I think it appealed to their imagination, too) - and suddenly my alter ego and I were transported to the circus, where she/I would take our bows, as the dogs sat on their hind legs and begged with their paws, at the end of our act - to a standing ovation from our audience, the chickens clucking their approval, out back. On other days, my imaginary life would take me down the rabbit hole with Alice, or up to the Alps with Heidi. The backyard would transform into my own Secret Garden or a hundred other magical places.

Wherever I went, my imaginary life travelled with me. When I was afraid at first to step down into the dark, underwater submarine ride at Disneyland, my imaginary life helped me overcome my fears - training my eyes on the costumed 'mermaids' sunning themselves on the rocks around the perimeter of the water. My imaginary me donned her own mermaid tail, and swam off to join them, distracting me long enough to get on the ride.  On Fourth of July, when the fireworks boomed loud and scary, I was no longer a scaredy-cat, jumping at every crackle-snap-boom. I could finally watch them while standing bravely, as the imaginary me grew fairy wings, to soar up above them.

On dark windy nights, when the tree branches would screech against the roof and windowscreens, sounding exactly like skeleton fingers - my imaginary me would get up from the bed, put on her pretend Nancy Drew detective trench coat, and go to the window to shine the flashlight on them. Thus foiling their dark plots to frighten me, once their scrawny, twiggy shapes were revealed.

My imaginary life has stood by me, not only through the scary times and the heartbreaks, but even the ordinary, humdrum days, over the years. Through the most boring of lectures, staff meetings and training films, my imaginary life could unreel entire adventure stories. I could visit the pyramids by camel, or feast on figs with a nomadic tribe by an oasis. Or I could lead an expedition - suitably attired in safari suit and pith helmet :) - through the jungle on the back of an elephant, to find an ancient temple ruin. When we'd discover the pillars jutting out from the foliage, my trusty elephant would swing me down to the ground with her trunk. I'd hack through the creeping vines with my machete, to lead the other archaeologists in to find ruby-studded shrines.

While standing at the sink, doing dishes, I could jet off to London to see any number of people - in the very early years, it might be to have tea with the Queen, who would be impressed with my good manners, since having read Alice's adventures numerous times, I would remember to curtsy. As I got older, I might imagine I was in London, to be discovered by the Beatles :), or still later, attending an Elton John concert, always arriving by doubledecker bus - a mode of transport that still tickles my American imagination.

Here at home, while waiting for our common, ordinary, single-level bus, I might decide to wave bon voyage and thanks to my imagination, magically arrive in Paris. Or looking out the bus window, I'd imagine I was riding on the back of a motor scooter zipping through Rome, off to any number of adventures. While in the car, I could sail away to Fiji or Jamaica. The shower became a waterfall in Hawaii or Bali.   

Actually, the shower still seems to often change into a waterfall - and the bathtub has been known to become an inlet to the shore of a tropical isle, where I swim with my mermaid tail. Perhaps I'll hear the music of the humans ashore, and swim closer. Then I'd lie on the beach as the tide goes out, and let my tail metamorphose into human legs. I'd snag a swimsuit drying on a treelimb, don it and a grass skirt, then go join the dance. At first I might wobble on my new legs, though the humans would think I'd just had too many mai tais. Eventually, after a little while, swaying to the music I'd get my landlegs - while the others at the party would never suspect my salty origins. Perhaps I might decide to join the creative colony of writers on the island. I'd sit on the warm sand, listening to the waves crash, looking out to sea, while I sip a tropical drink from a pineapple, topped off with a maraschino cherry, and a little pink paper parasol (how cute - we didn't have those under the sea!). Taking pen in hand, I begin to write my own tales. Stories inspired by my former life under the ocean waves...such as the time I saved a young pirate captain, named Jack, from a watery grave, resuscitating him...(Cough, blush) Ahem.

Um - ok, enough of that one for now...so-o-o, let's see - maybe there's this writer's group, on a cruise ship. A floating writing retreat. A tropical storm suddenly sends the ship reeling, taking on water. As the ship lists to one side, they find they must abandon ship for a life raft. They cling to the raft, as it bucks up and down, through the rough, rolling waves. At last, the storm passes; the sun breaks through the clouds, and the marooned writing group lands ashore a lush, tropic isle where they use their creativity to build a new society...

I'll stop babbling now. I'm happy to report, it appears my imaginary life is still alive, well - and apparently wildly overactive, even after all these years.

To read about other people's 'imaginary life,'  visit the new creative writing site, Writer's Island.

Comments

[Paris Parfait]

I love your fanciful imaginery life and your mermaid! Brilliant, Terri! xo

[artzyjudie]

Loved it! Your imaginary tales are wonderfully funny and entertaining. Um...are you sure that pirate's name wasn't Johnny? Mine would have been LOL
I have to say my childhood imaginary heartthrob hero wasn't a pirate, it was Mr. Clean. STOP LAUGHING!!! okok, I'm going to the writer's site and explore.

[gautami]

I love mermaids. I have always had some kind of fascination for these imaginary creatures.

Your post was an instant hit with me.

[Gillian]

Sweet! I loved the part where we, YOU! actually, were feasting on figs with the Bedouin peoples of the desert...
Thanks for the foray into your childhood too, I had a similar overactive imagination. Still do!
xo
Blue

[tammy vitale]

As always, I'd love to live in your imaginary world - it's quite extraordinay! And I can so identify with the bathtub thing. =]

[Tumblewords]

What fun! I was swept away and swept away. What fun!

[Tammy]

Wonderful post Tink. This was full of imagery that has your signature all over it. XXOO

[Lea]

I loved this journey with you, and I would want both you and your "other sister" as friends, for what fun the two of you have created here for us to all enjoy! Thank you!

[Pacian]

Evocative and a half. :-)

[...deb]

What a great travelogue - it shows so well why these imaginitive fantasies are so fun...

[Janet]

More, more, please! Your imaginary life is better than some books I've read! You sure can paint a picture with words....and with paint, too.

[Patti]

It was so wonderful to see inside your child mind. Clearly you still have a vivid imagination! Loved this.

[Jessica]

What a wonderful story/post! You capture the spirit of childhood quite well!

[pepektheassassin]

This was fun to read, well-told!

[Amber]

Oh my gosh, this is WONDERFUL! I love it!
Once when I was young, I road a train to see my grandparents, and I talked the whole time to the lady next to me with a southern accent. I made up a whole lame (I am sure) story to go with it. LOL
So can I be on your sinking ship, too? i want to come!

I heart mermaids.

[gemma]

Don't you just love jetting off to London while doing dishes? I want to try that too!
:-)

[Rob Kistner]

What a great read! I want to hear more about Jack... ;)

Glad you're on the island!

[Marilyn]

What a truly wonderful essay! LOVED it! And as an aside, I loved the detail of the screen door slamming. When I was a child, we didn't have screen doors...it was only when visiting far away relatives that I got to experience them. I thought they were exotic! :) (And always wanted one.) I'm sitting right next to our open one right now. ;)