Growing up in a family that uses music and reading as a primary entertainment and TV as a hidden box in Daddy’s retreat, I had to be creative about my playtime, especially when alone. I was alone a lot because Momma had some dumb rule about cleaning my room first. When we moved to Arizona our new home was a double-wide trailer planted firmly on a corner of the church property where Daddy Pastored.

To foster a homey look, we set our half the property off by large rocks we’d found around the property and placed them strategically at the end of the church “parking lot”. Thus we had a little parking space for our cars, a designated area for church members, and a boundary between the two. We even grew grass in front and back, but the side (where this boundary was laid by the rocks) remained bare and hard.

It was the perfect size for my imagination to lay out a restaurant, and I reordered the rocks as booths. In my little restaurant, you could eat the best of anything and be filled to delight calorie free. I walked from one booth to another taking orders and repeating them to my imaginary cook, who produced intricate recipes with lightning speed so I could dish them up with grand fanfare and collect my generous tip.

Picture how this looked to people driving by. You turn onto a neighborhood street in Podunk, Nowhere to pass by a little church to see a twelve year old girl talking to air, writing in her hand with nothing, and waving empty hands like she were passing food around a huge table, reaching over an empty space to keep from bumping candles that really aren’t there.

Ah, but fantasy is so much fun because you can say what you like, do what you like, and be what you dream. In fantasy, you don’t skin knees, pull muscles, or break bones. In fantasy you can fly without assistance and make straight A’s without effort. In fantasy you are only limited by the dream.

Then I grew up. My fantasy disappeared and real life knocked me in the face. But every now and then I remember the glorious moments when I lived in the world of my imagination. I dined there, became famous there, and ruled the world.

Today I look at snow flurries outside my window and shiver. I remember a world where I can have a blizzard come and go to leave fresh powder, followed by self-propelling snow shovels, massive street dryers, and an arsenal of other such accoutrements designed to keep the snow beautiful and glorious without me getting cold.

Such fantasy warms my heart and makes me wish I could make the real world a little more like my imagination. . Ah, I can dream, can’t I?