Stories in our minds

What will I write about, Sanya? I asked my niece with whom I work.

Write about the stories in our minds, she said, then walked away to buy herself a toothbrush. Hmmm, I thought, I like the sound of that. It is provocative, imaginative. It sets our minds free to make up stories that are totally to our liking and that bring us some joy, enough joy to settle back and accept reality. And surely, we all have stories in our minds that somehow add a little excitement, a touch of romance to what is a terribly dull life.

Once I met a man I found extremely charming. He was tall, dark, handsome enough. I felt very drawn to him but sadly he wasn’t drawn to me. That’s the real story. In my head, we began to date. We had a leisurely lunch at that lovely, very expensive steak place. We shared a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, my favorite wine. We chatted. We talked about our lives. We laughed a lot. We ended at three-ish. Oh, what a wonderful time we had!

Then the sun shines in my eyes. I am at work, looking out the window. It is three-ish and I have been merely daydreaming. In truth I had a lunch of fried chicken and vegetables, purchased from the man who sells lunchboxes in the building, then I sat down and worked on a pearl necklace for my class. That is my reality. How very boring!

In the car, on the way to some place, I listen to radio station 104.3. I love the old songs they play. They hardly ever play songs from my generation, mostly they play songs from my mother’s generation. They’re playing All the Things You Are. I love that beautiful romantic song. I imagine me dancing with my tall, dark and handsome lover, my head on his chest, his head on mine, so very close. Oh this is so romantic! I hear him breathing in my ear. I love the sound of that. Under my hand, which he holds close to his chest, I feel the thump-thump-thump of his heart. I love the feel of that. I love everything about this.

Then the car hits a bump on the road and the song is at its end. I tell myself —that man of yours must be tall enough to have you lay your head on his shoulder that way. You are a tall woman, you know. Six feet, I tell myself. That’s how tall my next man should be. If one ever comes around. Sigh.

I look out of my window again. A cerulean blue sky with puffy white clouds baking in bright hot sun. My man and I are standing on something like a cliff overlooking a wide clear sea. From where we stand we see a school of big black fish swimming, looking like widows going to a burial — one man dead, so many widows left behind weeping, I say, laughing, and he laughs with me. He tells me I am very witty, then he kisses the back of my neck and I turn around and kiss him on his sweet moist lips.

Then suddenly, afternoon turns grey and I look out my office window to see a big dark grey cloud darkening the landscape. I am not at the beach after all. Just here at my desk, sitting, imagining, daydreaming romantic things with my unreal dreamboat whom I know will never come to claim me. All my life I will live alone but happy. But thank God, I have grown old and don’t really have that much more life to live.

I would rather have these wonderful little stories in my head than the reality of having a man I would have to live with between these imagined scenes, someone who in the morning wants to know where his brown socks are, they are not in his sock drawer. What did I do with the striped shirt that he likes to wear with these pants, they are not in his closet. Where did I put the book he was reading last week? He just left it on his nighttable and now it isn’t there anymore. What did I do with it? These mundane events never enter my mind’s stories. They are better left out of everything including real life.

I like very much the romance in my mind’s stories. They make my dull boring life come alive, filling it with little bits of hope and happiness. They make me feel like a young woman in her prime once more. In the end, I know they are daydreams and they can never really come true, but I can dream, can’t I? I can actually sit down and just enjoy my mind’s picturesque picaresque stories.

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