Sunday Scribblings-Real Life

After I read the prompt for this week’s "Sunday Scribblings", I pondered what I could say about real life that wasn’t totally morose and sleep deprived. So I figured I needed some inspiration and took myself out to a café for a coffee and raspberry tart. I noticed a man sitting by the window, tapping a rhythm on the table with one hand and flipping pages furiously with his other. He dunked his head to lap up his coffee like a shaggy dog.

I’m not the type to stare at men, considering I’m happily married and all. But how often do you see a man old enough to be your father engrossed in "Little Women"? And dressed in a Blink 182 tour t-shirt, tuxedo pants, and love beads straight out of Hair?

He looked up and smiled, blue eyes crinkling under a shock of red hair. I pointed to his book and admitted, "That’s one of my favorites. Although I always wanted to be Amy instead of Jo."

Something about him invited such confidences.

"So what are you writing about?" He glanced down at my notebook and saw the lone words "real life" written in the center of the page, circled repeatedly. What follows is his spontaneous soliloquy on the subject. Any inaccuracies are my fault. My hand could barely keep up with him, once he got going.

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Real life is the new fantasy, man.

Don’t believe me? Look around at all the shows people watch nowadays. "Reality" this and "honest-to-God-true" that. Books that tattoo "this is a true story" all over themselves sell a lot better than most novels, even if the "true story" is written by a guy with the vocabulary of a five year old kid. I guess we think we’re all too cool and mature to bother with a little fantasy these days, so we sneak it in and pretend it’s just the facts, ma’am. I mean, look at the "truth" we’re seeing! It’s never some guy watching television and ordering takeout for the sixth straight day...no, it’s always people eating some poor bull’s testicles on a deserted island for a million dollars. We all think that only we’re boring...and so we try to escape into other people’s realities. But we’re all wrong, man! Look at my old lady, just an example...she’s one of those White Russians...you know, her great great great grandparents had to run for their lives after the revolution because they were royalty. And that’s her true life, man. She’s taking Russian classes now so that she can go there and start a band about how she’s down with the masses. And she’s 48! And I’ll bet if you asked her, she’d tell you that she’s totally ordinary.

And look at me...I followed the Dead for 10 years, met lots of people who I’ll remember forever, and met lots of others who kind of blur together, but it was beautiful. Now I own a coffeehouse, Cosmic Charlie’s, and we celebrate Jerry Garcia’s birthday every month! And it’s not like anyone told me that life could ever be that way—I grew up on a farm in Kansas. But that music...oh, that music was the way I wanted life to be, so I made it that way. And, uh, I’m still making it that way.

I’ll bet if people stopped trying to fit themselves into somebody else’s version of normal, they’d see how big their true life could really be—all that stuff you hate that embarrasses you, I’ll bet that’s where your soul lives. You know...like how you remember that Aunt Alice told you that you were double jointed and so you practice handsprings on your day off? Or you can’t start your day without reading your horoscope and turning it into haiku? Or you drive two towns over where nobody knows you to sing karaoke in Spanish? Or how you started calling yourself "Daisy" after you read the Great Gatsby? It’s all beautiful, and it’s all true.

Lots of people still move to Paris to live in a garret and write poetry. Or join the Peace Corps. Or go back to school to get their PhDs at 50. Or chuck it all and garden. No matter how normal you think you are, somebody’s out there who thinks your life is just the weirdest thing ever. I mean, an Indian bride becomes the incarnation of Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, on her wedding day, but that’s just totally normal to her, you know? That’s just true.

Like my guru Joseph Campbell says, "The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change." These reality shows are all just showing you somebody else’s myth, but you gotta find your own myth, and you gotta live by it. I mean...something’s gotta be a dream before it’s true life, right? Who would’ve guessed 50 years ago that we’d all be talking to strangers on computers? That was somebody’s dream, or a whole lotta somebodies, and they made it happen. And it’s all beautiful.

Anyway, looks like my old lady’s done with her study group. That’s her over there, in the black mini dress. Gotta go...but remember....stop letting the people on TV live your real life for you. Be weird to be real, man! Follow your bliss! Let your freak flag fly!

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This is totally, absolutely true. Except when it’s not.

(Ed. note: Just wanted to make sure to say that this is ALL fiction. I'd love to meet someone like him, too, though! Sorry to mislead. :( )