If you have been found to be out of your mind, I hope you will post a comment. I don't like being alone in such matters. But I think discussion is in order, since it came up in the family again tonight.
I was in eighth grade, taking a required science class from Miss Wilcox. In those days, Ms. was an unheard of designation, and I'm quite sure her name was Miss Wilcox. My seat was near the back of the room at one of those desks with the ink well in the top. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. I'm older than you.
On this particular day, a woman from the Salt Lake Board of Education was visiting the class, and she took a vacant seat right next to mine, across the aisle. Miss Wilcox was lecturing on something, and as usual, I was off in my mind. I guess. She must have been talking about stars, and in order to make a contribution, I raised my hand. "I've heard that if you're in a well, you can look up and see the stars, just like at night," I said.
Whereupon Miss Wilcox pointed to a diagram she had just made on the board of a well with arrows pointing out of it toward the stars. I gagged out an apology, while Miss Wilcox smiled a benign smile, and the woman from the Board of Education broke into a big laugh.
It was the first time I knew that I spent a good bit of time in my head, absorbing thoughts from outside places and then assuming those thoughts were my own. I'm sure I knew about being in a well and seeing stars--yes, Louise, I hear you laughing--but ... what am I trying to say?
Some of us live a good bit of our lives away from the so-called real world. We want to appear to be engaged, but more often than not, we're absent. Today, for example, I spent a good bit of time in church lost on Hogback Lake (see earlier blog), listening to the loons at sunset and enjoying the autumn leaves. It was a good place to be.
My question is this: in such moments am I in or out of my mind? Anyone care to join me? Meanwhile I'll just take the jeers from Louise and my sons.
Samara constantly accuses me of stealing her thoughts AND of living somewhere in a deep mental recess... so fathomless that even starlight can't penetrate the gloom. But somehow during 18 years of marriage Samara has found a way of allowing her thoughts to percolate through layers of mental bedrock... so that although stolen, I readily accept her ideas.
ReplyDeleteIt's the blessing of marrying a woman smarter than you are, Khoren. Trust me, I know.
DeleteI am always in my own world and therefore when my husband walks into the room I jump up and am so scared!
ReplyDeleteNow that's funny. And what does he do?
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