Unseen Beauty: A Journal

The Stuff of Story

The sky is tarnished silver today; it is one of those rare chilly grey days that occasionally find themselves in Florida in the spring and the fall. The wind whispering between the sharp fingers of the palm fronds is cool, and I find myself grateful for the warmth of the sweater I regularly keep stashed in the back of my office. Today, it seems the greyness of the outdoors has crept into my soul; I feel bruised, tired. I want to be alone, somewhere warm and comfortable, somewhere safe, in the pleasant company of a good book.

But we all know that money makes the world go ‘round. And money, in the summertime, is in short supply. So I stay here, clinging to the brightness of memory. Last Friday was one of those bright spots – my husband and I ran away, went to a place where the illusion replaced the dreary reality. For a day, we were Someone; we were living in a place a little brighter, a little more important than daily reality.

I think that most of us who are naturally attracted to the worlds of the imagination – those who lay claim to bibliophilia and mediaphilia (Yes, I can invent a word) – long for something more than the binding threads of the social webs of daily life. Human beings naturally long for story. Stories are the stuff of life, and we need something dramatic, something affirming that convinces us that we are more than simply another dot in the pointillist canvas of the universe. Human beings need that, but we find that sense of story in different ways. After more than a decade in public service work, I have come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of people: there are those whose mental worlds are limited to reality and who must find or create drama in their relationships and activities, and those who find drama and transcendence in the realm of imagination and media.

The vast majority of those I work with on a day to day basis are members of the former clan. Their conversation is grounded in the tension and drama of their friends and of their sex lives. If there is no activity in their social sphere, there is no motivation for converse, and they are unhappy. Without story, they are lost, and since the source of story is the lives of those around them, they have a sense of loss, of longing. That sense of story, of drama found in the rushing tide of day to day life is certainly viable; it serves as the branching off point for literature and art, but it is a source in which I do not wish to bathe. To me, the drama and interrelation is exhausting. To a woman who spent much of her life isolated from the social “friend” scene, it seems somehow petty and contrived. I admit to not watching many critically acclaimed films and twitching at most epistolary novels. I am perhaps dull, insensitive, for I find them mundane; I long for something more transcendent, something…bigger than the transactions of day to day life.

The drama that calls to me is the drama of media – the drama that deals in the fantastic, the wonderful, the things that utterly surpass the grind of the everyday. From my first favorite books, Robin Hood and Peter Pan, to my current DVD shelf, filled with fantasy, sci-fi, and action, I am a woman who feeds upon the fantastic, the larger than life. Pixar’s Incredibles remains one of my favorite films because I find deep personal truth in its plot – I believe that people who want to make everyone special and remove the incredible from our world in order to prevent feelings of inferiority are indeed evil. I love that incredibleness, that continuous hope for magic and wonder. With my eyes fixed on the amazing possibilities, I have a chance of rising above the day to day grind, to shoot for the incredible, and perhaps attain it. Although the drama of everyday inspires many, my inspiration comes from possibility, from remarkable stories, true or imagined, that show me what might be, if only I dare to try. I cannot find drama or fascination in whether or not Janie reached orgasm in position A or position B or in whether John fought with girlfriend A or boyfriend B. I do not like reality television: it neither inspires, entertains, nor teaches me. I want to run through Sherwood forest, to dream of great heroes who stand strong against incredible odds, to learn about men who stood against the greater horrors of our own time. I want to turn my eyes to the sky of imagination and see beyond the grey.

So I cling to my day in the sun, away from work, in a place where I was free for a few hours. And I long for the company of a good book, a doorway into a place of greatness…to a place where the sun shines on the extraordinary.