Daily Production

For most of my life, all I wanted to do was read. As a kid, I was the one curled up in my room with a book. If mom sent us outside to play, I took Nancy Drew with me. And you best believe I still have something to read in the car, an honest-to-goodness paperback volume of short stories, just in case I get stuck in a blizzard with no cell service. Boots, a blanket, and a book. Not that blizzards are common in the piedmont of North Carolina. But you never know.

Now I'm 3/4 retired and I could read as much as I want, but there's a loud and insistent voice in my head that says NO! I should be productive, I should be working on something significant like mopping floors or cleaning out closets or painting the kitchen. I should be writing on the two books that are underway, practicing the piano, or at least doing laundry.  And there's always the office that is knee-deep in files and folders, photos and stacks of papers that need to be organized. 

Sitting and reading; what a waste of time.

I used to dream about retirement, how long and luxurious the days would be. No interruptions. Deciding from one moment to the next what I would do. It's not like that, at least not often enough. 

Aside from Jill's studio, which is filled with art, every room in our house has books, shelves and shelves of books, many of them never read ---- yet. I have books bought at auctions and used book stores. There's a bookcase filled with musty volumes from my parents and grandparents. My office and upstairs house research materials, writing and reference books, classics and mysteries and paperback novels.  Author friends have expanded my collection and Amazon provides innumerable selections not available in the library. 

It's one thing to collect them and another to make time to read. When I do, as absorbing and exciting as a text may be, the niggling guilt often overtakes me and I jump up mid-chapter to put in a load of clothes, start supper, feed the dogs, clean the bathroom. 

Here's the question, if not now, when? I'm 69 years old. No promises anymore; I could come to a halt any old time or hang on for 30 more years. Those books gathering dust on the shelves will outlive me either way. 

To read or not read?

I choose a book.

Between spaces

Where do you go when you sleep?

I've long been fascinated by the betweens. Dreams. Pretend. Reverie. Hallucination. What is the difference between vivid sleeping dreams and hallucination?

When I was in sixth grade, I used to get in trouble for daydreaming in school. My teacher, Mrs. Patrick, was strict but I liked her. We had just moved from the small towns of rural Iowa and fetched up in Germany on an Army base. It was 1961. Everything familiar was gone; I didn't even have favorite objects because our household goods hadn't arrived.

My desk was one row over from the windows because of course, we sat in rows. I gazed out the windows that overlooked the playground and grassy space and fell into deep thought. Mrs. Patrick thought I was dawdling; I knew if I didn't "daydream" I would cry.

People who dwell in imagination, children or adults, are often accused of being out of touch with reality. Lazy, head in the clouds, not all there. You've heard the words, whether they apply to you or not. "Why can't you just pay attention?" "Snap out of it!"

The netherworld I occupied most often was found between the covers of a book. It was there that new worlds opened and I could travel to distant times and places. It's a bit of a chicken and egg question: did I begin to dream because of the stories I read and those read to me, or did the stories I encountered mirror my innate inclinations?

I've reached a point in life in which I can dream more freely, just as my ambitions and "real world" options seem to be narrowing. In that regard, it's much like childhood. I have more agency now, and the ability to call my own shots. Nobody is going to move me from one continent to another without consultation. Perhaps that lack of decision-making gives rise to a rich childhood imagination for some kids like me.

I love being asleep because of the vivid dreams that come to me. At the same time, I resist going to sleep because being awake is so interesting and I'm afraid I'll miss something. So I stay awake "past my bedtime" (sorry, Mommy) and fall into a colorful panoply of stories and actors that I then resist waking from.

I've often heard people say they don't dream when they sleep. I don't know the physiology of that because I don't understand the mechanism of dreaming. But it's surprising to me how often that pronouncement is made with pride.

"I don't dream." (subtext: dreaming is a namby-pamby waste of brain power)
These are often the same folks who brag about only needing four hours of sleep a night. Hmmm. Is there a connection?

Me, I have taken to sleeping 8-10 hours a night and spending so much time in dreams that sometimes I can't remember what's real and what I dreamed. With my background of two parents with Alzheimer's Disease, that can be troubling, but there's no sense worrying. In the meantime, I reap the benefits by waking up with stories buzzing around in my head waiting to be written down.

Next year, ten short months from now, I will turn 70. Just as childhood is a time of rapid growth and change, I feel like this time of life is filled with questions and answers I would not have anticipated. As my body begins to change in ways I don't approve of, I find myself renewing my acquaintance with the pastimes and enchantments of my youth. I may not travel the world in real life -- too expensive, too difficult -- but I am once again loose in the liminal world between worlds and it's a welcome return.

Mom reading a bedtime story on the picnic table.