This is a story I wrote 2 years ago, but I am urged by multiple pokes to post it. Thanks to Luz Aguirrebena for sharing the photo and her encouragement.
Daydreaming
by
Neal Worthington
God, she felt wonderful. Better than she ever remembered feeling before. Everything that touched her was soft. Huge, light fluffy balls of cotton waltzed slowly toward her, inviting her to dance, and then brushed her with a satiny touch to carry on to who knows where. Hundreds of them, all smiling enigmatic happy smiles, which she could not quite see.
Then...it changed and felt as though a perfectly sweet and smooth liquid, something like butter-colored chocolate milk poured slowly over her, caressing every inch of her and creating the most delicious sensation. Or no, maybe she was the liquid...anyway, it was heavenly.
A sharp sound jarred the peace of her dream. She wished it to stop, but the sound wouldn't, though her only thought was to make it go away. Insistently, it repeated itself, and eventually it formed into words. “Deedee! Deedee!” She didn't recognize it at first, but yes, that was her name, and it sounded so, so harsh. “Deedee!” Then she recognized it as the voice of her father.
“Stop your daydreaming, young lady, and get your things packed. You don't have all day, you know.”
She came back to earth, so to speak, with a thump, rudely disturbed, and not at all happy. But she knew better than to cross father, and she nodded compliance with a straight, yet unwilling face, which, fortunately was turned the other way.
And while father looked sternly on, she turned to her bed that was too hard for sleeping comfortably, but just right for laying out suitcases waiting to be packed, and they were there, yawning open, but still empty. Then, accompanied by a disapproving fatherly stare, she pivoted like a robot and stepped to the open wardrobe. Only after she had deposited a dress in the first case did father leave the room, and her to her duty, which she methodically performed.
It was all so unkind, and had been for quite some time, ever since Lisa, her favorite nanny of all time had left to buckets of her tears. Of course, Lisa had to leave. She couldn't be a nanny forever, and Deedee was growing up. But, oh how she loved Lisa and her cuddles and especially her stories. She had told Deedee a million stories, all of them set in a distant, magical land, and Deedee retold them in her mind every night before sleeping. When she was really young, the stories sometimes took the form of lullabies, but later she and Lisa had sung together as they laughed and giggled, walking in the meadow, swinging in the swing, pedaling their bicycles, and even cooking together. But the lullabies she still often hummed to herself in the moments before dreaming.
Mother she didn't remember much at all; she had disappeared from Deedee's life at such a young age that Deedee had trouble catching any memory of her in the dim corners of her mind. And no one was willing to talk about her. Lisa didn't even know. Father always said that someday he would explain, but he said it in a way that meant he wouldn't speak of it again. And she missed Mother, even though she couldn't bring to mind a single memory of her.
Most of all she missed Lisa. After Lisa left, father had sent her to all the best schools; he had hired Mrs. O'Flannery to take her shopping for the necessaries, to drive her to and from school and to dance class and the sorts of activities appropriate for a girl, in his estimation. But Mrs. O'Flannery did not really seem to care for her, though she was kind and always smiling and on time.
Now even that was going to change. She was going to a boarding school, the best boarding school, of course, but she did not want to go, nor could she even remember the name of the school. She felt like her life had been taken away from her bit by bit, and now there was going to be nothing left. Father had lectured her, told her that she would get a fine, appropriate education, and grow up to be a lovely young woman. Provided that she paid attention, cooperated and applied herself.
Not caring what went into the suitcases, she loaded them and left the closing and fastening for father, who appeared just at the appropriate time, reluctantly nodded approval, and set the cases by the door.
Deedee asked if she could take a nap, not because she was tired, but because she wanted to be alone in this, the only place that seemed warm and possibly safe to her...at least the memories were warm, but even now she felt them slipping through her fingers, away into nothingness. Father assented.
So she stretched out on the big,hard bed, stuffed some pillows round herself for something soft, and let out a deep sigh that felt like her very heart was leaving her.
She wasn't falling asleep, but she began dreaming, dreaming of herself right here on this bed, hugging every available bit of warmth to herself. And as she did she felt herself melting into the bed, which became soft, and she herself became toasty warm. It was almost like the best of times, back with Lisa, listening to lullabies, eyelids drooping.
Then she saw herself getting up, tucking her stuffed rabbit, Polly Anne (which father said she could not take with her) under her arm and walking down the hall to the door that opened to the attic stairs. She quietly turned the knob and swung the door slowly open, then climbed the stairs to the huge open attic with nothing in it except long stretches of dusty boards on the floor, soft sunlight flowing through the small windows on one side, and two lone trunks down at the far end.
One set of windows, not on the sunny side, was bigger and was really a set of doors that opened onto a small balcony. It was her favorite place. She never let father know that she came here. He had found her here once, and forbid her to come again. That was the one rule of father's that she did not keep, but she came here only when it was safe and he was sure not to discover her. It was high up, but she was never afraid.
Today, as she dreamily slipped onto her balcony, she discovered that the softness of the sunlight was the result of a mist in the air, the remainder of a brief shower, she supposed, for the mist hovered around the trees that were as high as her and higher. She turned toward the peak of the roof, expecting that she would need to shade her eyes from the brightness of the sun, but golden light was not what she saw. Color seemed to fill the air. Every color, everywhere. It seemed to be beckoning her, though she could not pin down why that was so. She followed.
Where the roof met the balcony at a steep angle, she put a tentative foot on the angled roof, and it felt solid, like she was walking on a sidewalk, though it angled up steeply. Then she put the other foot in front of the first, and she found that, magically, she was walking up the steep roof, up toward the chimney on top. After a step or two, she was not afraid, she just walked straight up as the colors kept on urging her to do. At first she kept her eyes on her feet, but soon she didn't need to do that, and she began to look around freely, trying to find the source of all the beautiful color.
She reached the peak of roof, stood easily right on the point, and sensed that the color was surrounding her. She put a hand on the chimney to steady herself as she looked straight up, and yes, color was all around. No, now it began to take shape. It arched up away from her, and arranged itself in bands of color...it was a rainbow! Touching down right on her rooftop, a glorious, huge, almost alive rainbow in the most brilliant color she could image, not hazy and indistinct like all other rainbows she had seen.
Then, just like she was urged to walk up the roof, she felt drawn to walk up the arching rainbow. And she did. Though she did not see a hard surface to the rainbow, she climbed the arch as easily as she had the stairs to the attic. The thought came to her mind, “What is it like over the rainbow?” “ Can I go over the rainbow?” There didn't seem to be anything stopping her, so she continued to climb, luxuriating in the color almost like enjoying suds in a great bubble bath. The climb was an easy one, and she was on the top before she knew it. Puffy white clouds, rather like the cotton balls in her earlier daydream, drifted by her on both sides, and the blue of the sky was bluer than she had ever seen before; it matched the brilliance of the rainbow.
And even though the sky was so blue, and light and color were all around, she could see the stars, as brilliant as on the darkest, clearest night. Her gaze was captured by one star in particular, the brightest one, and one with a warm glow about it. As she looked, she could almost swear that she had eye contact with the star, and that it was looking back at her. Then she remembered that she and Lisa had looked at the stars through her bedroom window, and picked one, and wished on it.
Lisa had sung her a song, a sort of lullaby...
When you wish upon a star,
Makes no difference who you are.
Anything your heart desires will come to you.
Back then she believed it. She had wished night after night. And her wishes did come true, and life was perfect. She didn't remember when she had stopped wishing, she just had.
Now, as she stood at the top of the rainbow, staring her star in the eye, she was surprised to find herself bold enough to wish again. So she wished for the land that she and Lisa visited in those bedtime stories long ago. She wished to go there again. When she wished with Lisa, she crossed her fingers, scrunched up her eyes, tried to cross her toes, and wished and wished and wished. That did not seem necessary now, and indeed it was not, for no sooner had she wished, than she felt herself floating, then flying; up above the clouds she rose, unlimited in her movement, as she soared the skies.
As the land of her stories came to mind again, her foot touched down, and she was in it. She was actually here! Everything was more real than real, the grass like the plushest carpet, the trees bowing to her, the soft breeze brushing her face. The streams flowed with crystal clear water, the animals said their hellos, all in their own way. Polly Anne dropped from the crook of her arm and hopped delightedly with other bunnies. Bluebirds flitted along side her as she lightly skipped over the ground.
She reached a grove of trees that stood higher than all the others, and cool, soft moss carpeted a bowl in the middle of the the grove, and in the center of that a stone fire pit stood, with a slowly burning fire. She suddenly felt tired, tireder than she had ever been before. Yes, this was the land she had dreamed of, but her troubles had traveled here with her, and the weight of them suddenly became great. She felt more strongly than ever the hurt of never knowing her mother, or even knowing anything about her, not being able to remember her. The tears that had flowed when Lisa went away flowed again. The cruelty of schoolmates pierced her painfully a second time, and the loneliness that had grown large in her last few years became overpowering. The fact that her father never kissed her, never hugged her, and rarely said anything nice to her crushed her. And with the prospect of boarding school so close, these troubles threatened to press her flat into nothingness, like weights of unimaginable size. In fact, she could almost see them as weights, thrown over her head and shoulders...and then she could. As they became more and more visible, she heard a voice from within her, but not coming out of her mouth say, “just lay them down, Deedee, just lay them down.” She was sure that the effort required would be too great. She wanted to, oh how she wanted to. Then, gathering every ounce of her strength, she lifted them off, one by one, and lay them down. Exhausted, she slept on the moss.
When she wakened, the weighty troubles had moved away from her a bit, or she had moved away from them, she did not know which. And as she watched, out of mid air, a shower formed just above the troubles, and as the sprinkles fell, the troubles began to lose their shape. It even looked like they were getting smaller. Yes, they were truly melting! In front of her very eyes, they disappeared. Totally disappeared. She whispered a prayer of thanks that she had found the strength to lay them down. Now she felt incredibly light, so light that nothing could hold her down, and she could fly away anywhere, any time she wanted. Free...she was free. She thought this might take a while to really sink in, but it came to her quite naturally, and along with her freedom came the gift of believing.
She turned and looked into the steadily burning flame of the fire. It didn't seem to need more firewood, for the wood that was there earlier had not been consumed. As she gazed, pictures of her long ago bedtime stories came to her, stories that took place here in this magical land. The images in the flame were like movies, yet real life, not really from another time and place, but from right here and now, though she had seen them before.
She saw Beauty and her loving father in their distress, and in their joy; the Beast and the prince appeared as one astounding whole person, defying all logic. She felt the walls of the immense castle around her, smelled the sumptuous meals that filled the tables, knew, really knew, the despair and the delight of the story.
She experienced the hate of ugly step sisters. She scrubbed stone floors. And she rode with Cinderella in the pumpkin coach, danced at the ball, was swept up in the arms of the prince, swept away with her before the stroke of midnight. And encompassed by the prince's love again.
She tramped the mountains with dwarfs, lived in their tiny home with tiny everything and shared their tiny, rich life. Too, she experienced the sting of poison, even the death that was but a prelude to new life and supreme happiness.
It came naturally to Deedee, then...the idea that if she would just think a thing, it would come true. She could think being happy and be happy. She could think being whatever she wanted to be (not just what father wanted her to be) and she could be it.
She could feel father love surrounding her, and she could have it. She could feel Mother love embracing her and comforting her.
Images followed of things that she really wanted. A sister. One to share everything with. One who laughed with you when you wanted to laugh, and cried with you when you needed to cry. One that meant you were not alone. One that played jokes on you and pretended to be outraged when you did it to her. One that always remembered your special days. One you could say anything to. One that loved you just for you.
Father love. Love that was proud of you and showed it. Love that wasn't afraid to tell you he missed you when you were away and couldn't wait for the day that you would be home. Love that didn't care how many questions you asked. Love that made you know you were safe. Love that let you make mistakes and messes, and supported you while you made them right and cleaned them up. Love that hugged and kissed and smiled and wanted to be with you for no reason at all.
Mother love. Love you never really had a chance at. Love that soothed the deepest and the shallowest of hurts. Love that always had time for you. Love that told you when you were full of it, and then hugged you silly. Love that was never going to be far away.
Deedee looked up. The sky really was blue. The clouds really had passed. And what she really dreamed really did come true here in this magical land. But she was in a dream, and she knew that. Could she dream in real life and have that come true as well? For the second time today an identical sharp sound jarred her peace. “Deedee. Deedee!” Could she dream in real life and have that come true as well? From within her came the answer, “Why not, Deedee, why not?”
