REALITY CHECK

"Bean" - Chimayo, New Mexico

Chasing fantasies more often than not end up with broken promises and broken hearts - and then sometimes perhaps not.

Once upon a time when I was a child, I had visions of what my life would be like if only I could grow up - if only things were different - if only I were a better person - if only....

Somewhere within me there are still unspoken fantasies or dreams or goals, things yet achieved.  These are often accompanied by a certain tenacity that won't let go.  Call it stubborn.  Call it faith or frivolous or willful or downright, "Damn it!  I deserve it."  But hand in hand with fantasies, often sight unseen, creeps in a reality check.

Then the question arises, if I let go of my fantasies what will happen to me?  What will take their place?  Does something to have to? Will new dreams, fantasies yield more broken promises?

Letting go isn't defeat.  Letting go can be freedom.  It can be inhaling.  It can be a beautiful shade of green velvet, soft and lucious.

The butterfly has yet to emerge, but will it? 

It is raining softly outside this morning.  I go to the door to let the dogs out.  First Kelsie, then Wally, then little blind Gracie who instantly senses, smells, and hears RAIN.  She stops dead in her tracks and charges back into the house.  I can almost hear her thinking, "Darn, no squirrel chasing today."  On this heavy liquid day, no chasing fantasies for either of us.

Gracie too was stopped by a reality check.  I wondered if I have learned the difference between reality and the land of fantasy and broken promises.  The land of  if only...where actions speak louder than words.

Or maybe my fantasies are reality!  Maybe fantasies are necessary. And maybe fantasies allow us to cope. Or at the very least, something to ponder on this rainy day in my search to find myself. 

Maybe the world doesn't need to conform to my fantasies.  Maybe, just maybe, the real world is fantasy enough.

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Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.

~Harrison, Barbara Grizzuti~

"I like nonsense -- it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope... and that enables you to laugh at all of life's realities."

~Dr. Seuss~

"Everyone must have a fantasy."

~Andy Warhol~

"You wish to see the distant realms? Very well. But know this first, the places you will visit, the places you will see, do not exist. For there are only two worlds - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this one, worlds of the human imagination. Their reality, or lack of reality is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. Do you understand?"

~Neil Gaiman~