15 There's Still Time For You
In those blissful days of childhood ignorance, play dates were like entering into an alternate universe. With the blink of an eye I was a mom, I was driving a car, I was baking for the the family, I was working a real job. No homework. No piano practice. I was a "real person." And when my mom came to pick me up, I would "help clean up" (the go-to excuse when four five-minute warnings had expired) and hop into the car to go home, a child again, with piano to practice and homework to complete.
Fast forward to today when those roles and responsibilities that I so excitedly assumed for fun are now my near future. Today when my mommy can't just come rescue me when the game gets boring. Today when there is no such thing as a five-minute warning, let alone multiple ones.
Now, more than ever, there's nothing I want more than to play pretend. But I don't want to pretend to have a job or drive a car. That's boring. I want to pretend to be on the playground at recess playing tether ball. I'd trade my Airheads with Sara's gummy worms. Or perhaps I will pretend to have some frivolous desire then pout when I don't get my way.
Ah, the days when we could just sit and pout when we didn't get our way. We could say "I want." We could engage in the most unfair but satisfying exchanges. We could kiss a boo-boo to obliterate the pain. We could say "sorry" to permanently end the fight. Why did we ever pretend it away?
The more I think about it, playing pretend wasn't always unicorns and cotton candy. There were downsides. Trying in vain to keep my friend's mom's size-7 shoes on. The ever-looming fear that it was almost time to go home. And of course, the despised task of cleaning up.
Life is supposedly an amalgamation of short stories pretending to be a novel. That's probably why it feels so right to skip from story to story. The antsy child in us gets bored with the story at hand and rushes ahead. The rational adult in us goes back to clarify what has already passed. But if you write your short stories anything like Calvino does, chances are that they are ordered with a rhyme and reason, to be enjoyed from first to last, almost an introduction to denouement. No skipping around. And well, if there's time, why make the long story short?
Fast forward to today when those roles and responsibilities that I so excitedly assumed for fun are now my near future. Today when my mommy can't just come rescue me when the game gets boring. Today when there is no such thing as a five-minute warning, let alone multiple ones.
Now, more than ever, there's nothing I want more than to play pretend. But I don't want to pretend to have a job or drive a car. That's boring. I want to pretend to be on the playground at recess playing tether ball. I'd trade my Airheads with Sara's gummy worms. Or perhaps I will pretend to have some frivolous desire then pout when I don't get my way.
Ah, the days when we could just sit and pout when we didn't get our way. We could say "I want." We could engage in the most unfair but satisfying exchanges. We could kiss a boo-boo to obliterate the pain. We could say "sorry" to permanently end the fight. Why did we ever pretend it away?
The more I think about it, playing pretend wasn't always unicorns and cotton candy. There were downsides. Trying in vain to keep my friend's mom's size-7 shoes on. The ever-looming fear that it was almost time to go home. And of course, the despised task of cleaning up.
Life is supposedly an amalgamation of short stories pretending to be a novel. That's probably why it feels so right to skip from story to story. The antsy child in us gets bored with the story at hand and rushes ahead. The rational adult in us goes back to clarify what has already passed. But if you write your short stories anything like Calvino does, chances are that they are ordered with a rhyme and reason, to be enjoyed from first to last, almost an introduction to denouement. No skipping around. And well, if there's time, why make the long story short?
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