May 11, 2010
Prompt: My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else.
My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else. I dreamed in fairy tales. I was six the 1st time I ran away, would have stayed gone if it hadn’t gotten dark. I always wanted something else, my mother called me a fence-climber, said I was a kid who really believed the grass was greener somewhere else. It’s true—I wanted another house, my own castle, one without sticky maple furniture and a kitchen that smelled like fish. I don’t think I was trying to be like Pan, running away from growing up. I was more like Alice, a curious girl. Or like Goldilocks who loved wandering the woods. But lately I’ve become nostalgic for that childhood home, missing that tucked-in sleep, the green grass scent wafting through my open window.
--Gail Comorat, RBWG member
* * *
My earliest memories are of imagining I was someone else. Daniel Boone in the wilds of Kentucky, and since I had the coonskin cap, Davy Crockett staring down a bear to the ultimate annoyance of my older sister who was the grouchy bear and the first to command, “Get out of my face.” Ultimately I settled on John Wayne who played the Kentuckian and Davy Crockett ironically enough. Could have been Fess Parker, but the pull toward The Duke was inevitable. I don’t remember when I first realized that my father looked like and spoke in the cadence of John Wayne (“I told you kids to do your homework. If I hear one more peep come down those stairs, your ass is going to pop like a new saddle.”), but John Wayne’s movies were mesmerizing and the cause of great pretending.
Throughout my life, I have enjoyed many flights of fantasy, not because I don’t like who I am, but because I wonder what I might have been or could yet become. Perhaps these are the roots of a lust for writing, for telling stories to others, and becoming the next big thing. Now that would be different indeed, Pilgrim!
--Jim Van Loozen, RBWG Member
* * *
It is difficult to pinpoint the earliest memory of pretending to be someone else. Playing with the neighborhood kids along with brothers and sisters, we made a nice little gang that often played outside together, even after dinner into the night.
When we were very young we held weddings out in the street, the older kids pretending to be the bride and groom. Being younger, I was always assigned a lesser role but where weddings were concerned attendants were always important. I was content to pull the wagon carriage or hold the trailing bed sheet of the brides train.
Soon we became enamored with Zorro, with his simple black mask over his eyes and his ability to slit a Z through the sky. I enjoyed taking my turn as Zorro appearing out of nowhere, stick-sward in hand, slashing my Z as I emerged from the darkness onto the stage lit up under the streetlamp.
But there were other roles to play too; Robin Hood and Babe Ruth, for instance. Robin Hood held endless possibilities, stealing from the rich, setting traps for the king’s men, vanishing before soldier’s eyes. We kids played out many different scenes, chasing each other through back yards before disappearing into lush gardens. And I liked to play catch with my girlfriend for hours at a time. The elderly man next door, watching from his lawn chair as he drank beer from a can, always called me Babe Ruth, so why not pretend that I was a spectacular ball player?
The exciting world of pretend took on many roles often several in the same day. Imagining was one of the greatest privileges of my childhood.
--Alice Morris, RBWG member
* * *
My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else. Not really someone else, of course, but a different self: someone who would to the adventuresome things about which I dreamed, someone who would take the risks and enjoy the rewards. It's a hard emotional life for compliant children. They're told all the right things about looking both ways before crossing the street and not taking candy from strangers. They get in the Cub Scouts and some den mother is telling them, "Better to be a chicken than a dead duck." They learn all the policies of a civilized society. That is the knowledge that produces fear: the sense that embracing danger is the wrong thing to do and its follow-on conclusion, that any injury you sustain will be "your own fault." Hence the dream of being someone for whom the consequences do not matter. Surprisingly, reading "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" put an end to my dreaming. It was too embarrassing to my subconscious, apparently, to be a cliché.
--Tom Hoyer, RBWG member
* * *
When I think back over my childhood, my earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else. My life back then revolved around fairy tales. I loved reading them and transporting myself into the world of make believe. I have never understood, as I have grown up, why my real world couldn't be more like a fairy tale and where in the name of all things good is my Prince Charming? I have yet to find the answer...but I remain hopeful!
I can still, on those days when reality is just too tough, find myself daydreaming. Yes, the fantasy world of my mind is still alive and well. It still takes me to the places in my minds world where happiness is thriving and dreams begin the day. And so I allow it! Well, why not? What harm can come from visits into the world of make believe? Who knows, maybe someday I too can create a new friend for Mickey Mouse or Harry Potter....wouldn't that be fun!
--Nancy Janssen, RBWG member
* * *
My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else. Standing in front of the cold mirror in my room, goose-bumps covered my arms. Looking at myself, I watched my hair change color, from red to brown. Make-up washed across my face, then melted away. My clothes changed from midnight black to bright sunny yellow. Clothes appeared behind me strewn across the floor. I stepped closer to the mirror. My nose almost touching it. My green eyes came into focus and I could still see me.
--Heather Poultney, RBWG Member
* * *
My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else.
A clock somewhere in the house chimed three. She would be home any minute now and I must make things right. I don’t want to be found like this. One last glance in the mirror, the face reflected I saw shocked me. Who was it staring back? I wanted to be my aunt, but the lipstick smeared and the jewelry, all of it, didn’t look elegant at all. I saw a tear running down my cheek. Footsteps creaked on the wooden stairs and Aunt Ruthie stood at the door. “Well, well what have we here?”
--Eileen Callan RBWG member
* * *
My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else. How much more fun to be the Lone Ranger on a white horse than a little girl who wasn’t allowed to ride a bicycle. I did have a tricycle though, which I liked to imagine could leave hoof tracks in the cement sidewalks of Brooklyn.
My friend Clara and I took turns on the trike, endlessly reenacting a scene from a Western movie we’d seen one Saturday afternoon along with 10 cartoons, a Superman episode, and a second feature. In the film, a haughty, spirited woman, (think Maureen O’Hara) gallops up to a ranch house where the handsome cowboy she’s been sparring with waits, leaning on the corral fence. He straightens as she dismounts and hands the reins to him, like a person used to servants.
“Thank you,” he says with just a trace of insolence in his voice.
“You’re not welcome,” she says with a queenly toss of her head, curls swiveling over her shoulder as she strides out of the scene.
How beautiful she was, and how we both longed to be that woman, dismissing that man with a few words and a couple of eloquent gestures.
--Sarah Barnett, RBWG member
* * *