A New Kid In The Neighborhood.

 

What about unneeded thoughts? What do I mean?

I was wondering about the use and value of imagination. As an example, in this discussion, I was thinking of a sister-in-law of mine. I think she would not understand or approve of dreaming up stories that have no basis in historical reality. I think she would think it was verging on committing a wrong, like I was lying. I remember reading that novels used to be considered transgressive because for one thing the stories were not true and possibly discussed bad things.

How can anyone live only processing accepted thought modules? Apparently, it’s possible.

One of the unnecessary thoughts I was playing with today was based on a memory. I remember as a child asking my mother how she would have liked us, her own children, when she was a child. She didn’t have a lot to say and seemed mainly amused by the question.

This led to a little exercise of imagination.

A New Kid In The Neighborhood

There are four of us. We live in a ratty little summer cabin near a little bay on an Indian Reservation because our parents are crazy. The three girls sleep in the house with our parents, and I sleep out in the building they made after we moved out here. We left a perfectly good house in Seattle. It was a two-story wooden frame thing with a basement, and we had our own bedrooms even.

I am twelve years old. My sisters are eight, seven and four years old. All useless but I’m stuck with them. I have to make sure they don’t drown at the beach or fall off of something, get bitten by wild animals or beaten up by Indian kids. This is a real possibility. 

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There are four of them. One is a boy my age. He is tall and awkward. He is kind though he says all kinds of weird stuff. He seems to be play acting.

The next youngest is a girl who seems to be angry at the world. She is hard on the younger ones, even to the point of hurting them. I’m not sure what she is so angry about. I have never seen a kid so hungry and needy for love. She and I look eerily alike.

Next younger is a girl who doesn’t say much. She is extremely intelligent and gifted for her age. She does very well in school, because she is quiet and works to do what is wanted of her. She draws very well also. She always seems to feel picked on.
Now that I am older, I know that the baby is the smartest of them all. The older girl told her how the letters sound and at four years old she can read the paper to you. She remembers everything she is told and compiles her own thoughts, busily.

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I was down at the beach and there was a girl there sitting on a log and looking out over the water. So, I sat down on a different log and talked to her because she was alone and just sitting there. She seems to be around my age. Brown hair, blue eyes, sort of tall. She smiles if you talk to her.

I asked her where she was from and if she lived here now. She said she was from somewhere else, maybe it was Idaho. She doesn’t live here now. She is just visiting the beach.

I told her some stories. Even said some of my poems. My sisters hate that.

She looks like she could be one of my sisters. I told her my name and she said it was a good name. She has the same name as my mother. Weird! Not many of those around. 

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Enough of that! What a strange unnecessary thought! Wouldn’t it be odd to meet your own children in the form of a child yourself? I’m not sure we quite hit it off there, but no hostilities either. They are good children.

Would time traipsing to meet your own self, either forward or backward be any crazier?