Photo Credit: Stuart Cook

La-La Land ©2010 R.D. Girvan

I was talking this morning with a friend, at the grocery store. We were talking about how our thoughts shape reality.  Actually, we were talking about the flu going around and how our families had both fallen victim to it, but “we had a nice Thanksgiving, anyway.”  While we were chatting about this, I was the one thinking about how our thoughts shape our reality.  So many things happen, in a weekend; in a day; in a life.  So many things to either focus upon or ignore.

People know this intuitively. Each of us edited our weekends massively, omitting the parts about holding heads and fetching buckets and cleaning carpets.  We did this without thinking, because that’s what we all do, almost instinctively.  It was Thanksgiving; therefore it was a good weekend. And in a few months, my family will not remember the flu.  We will remember going for a long walk in the Nature Reserve.  We will remember cooking Thanksgiving Dinner all together, how the kids peeled enough potatoes for 50 before we stopped them, and our son exclaiming, “I’m thankful for sausage!”

One of my favorite parts about writing is that, when I’m writing, that ability is valued.  It is not social convention or a positive attitude or living in a derogatory la-la land.  It is “a good imagination” or “foreshadowing” or “making people feel like they can’t wait to find out what happens next.”  I like that.

I think it is like living in la-la land; MY la-la land.  Writer John Barth was quoted as saying “reality is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”  David Morrell (who wrote “First Blood”) said, “… The stories that I tell distract me, and if I do the job right they distract people from things that are happening to them that they wish had never happened.”  Hear, hear!

Because, when it’s my world, my la-la land, my own private Idaho, neat things happen to distract me from the others.  Like when I went to bed after nursing our youngest, staying up for a couple hours in the middle of the night, when I felt pretty rough myself, performing the Mom duties that are really too gross to discuss – when I went to bed finally, I looked out the window and saw a thank-you gift from the Universe.  (My world, remember!) I saw the Northern Lights, dancing, filling the entire window, top to bottom, side to side.  As I told my friend this morning, I’m taking that one personally; that light show was for me!  Although: if anyone else saw them too, I’m happy to share.  🙂  RD

Photo credit goes to Stewart Cook, Photographer, with much thanks.