In Wonderland: A Combination Of Fact & Fiction

If you stare at an object long enough, it becomes something else entirely. A glance from the corner of your eye to the edge of your vision and to your right is a bear! Or a station wagon. To your left, disaster! Or a group of kids milling about. In a moving vehicle, trees run alongside you, matching your speed north. A fire will hypnotize you. As a child of five, I believed my Grandpa when he told me I would go blind if I stared long enough at a campfire. My Grandma told me it would blind me but only temporarily and that when my sight returned, it would make me a Spaewife. I still stare into the fire because of her.

My grandfather told grand stories. An appendectomy scar along the stomach that corresponded with the placement of a mole removal on his back became a wound from a bayonet earned while in France, during World War II. When I was a child, and my grandpa told me this, I believed it. The tip of the bayonet struck straight through his guts and exited him, just above his butt. His butt! We seven grandchildren were amazed that he had survived. Years later, as adults, we laughed at our younger selves, and wished we could return to such innocence. Now, when we believe stories, imagine alternatives to reality, we are only considered gullible. Having put to bed all our playthings, and stuffed them into boxes tucked into the corners of attics. If, years later, we have our own children, and can unearth our treasures – dolls and marbles, jacks and beads – we can create our own stories, while we relive our childhood through their wide eyes. Elsewise, as adults, we alter our perspectives to become grounded. We are unable to float off the ground and fly, save for one exception. Our dreams.

My dreams are always vivid. I wake up believing they are real. For a solid thirty seconds upon awakening, I believe that I flew. I really did save the dragon. I fought the bad guys. I ran on the lake. I escaped the demons. I kissed the man. I sang onstage without clothes on. In my favorite dream, I was five inches taller. It can happen. This time, I was with Henry, and he was kissing my back as I lay on my stomach. We were lost in the dark, whispering, until I woke up. Henry Dreams are usually a sign that he’s about to resurface, it’s not just that I miss him. I haven’t had one of those in a long time. It leaves me edgy as I roll out of bed and make my way to the kitchen.

Anne is there and ready with coffee. I shake him off my mind and take the cup that Anne hands me, electing not to mention the dream. We work on nursing well-earned hangovers and munch slowly on Cheerios and bananas.

We have an entire day to spend together and decide to invest in quality time instead of too many tourist attractions. Which means we go shopping instead. She needs shoes and I need dresses, if wanting can mean needing. Ben wisely disappears again until lunch. Armed with bags full of rainbow colored treasures, we sit outside of a cafe, where we sip on lemonade and trade family war stories with each other. Ben’s family is something of a mystery to me. I do not know them, and cannot understand how he managed to grow up in Louisiana without becoming Southern. He is such a Yankee, like Anne and I. He feels more like an East Coaster to me. When I meet his family in October, I’ll be able to see the similarities and draw better comparisons.

As we move towards the National Mall, an old man from the street asks me for a quarter. Anne and I are determined to earn some sunshine today. Our skin is starving for it. I give the man a few dollars. He gives me a tired smile and calls me beautiful. I wink at him in return.

“You have a guardian watching you,” he calls out, after we’ve passed him by.

“Thank you,” I reply, shaking my head slightly with amusement.

Shifting eyes from left to right as we cross the street, I whistle a Tom Petty tune and sing the words to “I Won’t Back Down” off-key, making Anne laugh and Ben grimace comically. We mosey over to the Mall. Our happy trio does not feel the tension that the guards and tanks lining the Capitol’s gates and fences have created.