What If

Have you ever thought ‘what if?’ Pffft, who hasn’t -- we’re breathing, sentient beings on the planet after all. For most of us, this what iffing is a healthy diversion, a daydream, a pack of parakeets hurrying into the sky.

I was reading, TBogg, one of my fav bloggers this morning. He mentioned that his daughter, who’d recently graduated from the University of Hawaii was living at home until grad school. This ‘what if’ landed squarely, solidly in my brain stem, inspiring me to wonder and dream.

You see, way back in the early ‘60s, (AKA The Dawn of Time, AKA When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth, AKA Before Smart Phones and Kindles Ruled The Earth) my father was applying to grad schools. Apparently he didn’t want to be a prep school math/science teacher forever -- go figure.

He had enviable, swoon worthy choices, having gotten into all the schools he’d applied to. One of these was the University of Hawaii.

Just imagine! We were living in mega rural New Jersey at the time and, though we’d lived a couple of places before (New Haven, Connecticut and York, Pennsylvania), it was the only home, the only environment I was aware of. There were huge buttercup and dandelion filled meadows, cool, gentle streams, ponies and free roaming, happy cats. There were poplars, aspens and willows everywhere. It was pretty idyllic to little me but, boy howdy, I’ll bet I could have cottoned to palm trees and surf right quick. You know, little kids are adaptable like that.

I would have been 7 years old when we got there. We probably wouldn’t have come back to the Mainland much given the cost, time and high annoyance factor of traveling with children . Hey now, I was a total DREAM as a child! Though even dreams can be bothersome pains in the ass at times. *cough*

This was, I’m sure one of the bigger reasons we didn’t move there. Pop and mi madre had close, much loved family here -- all here in New England and Upstate New York. We visited, and vice versa, often.

I envision Lucy and Chuck dreaming of beginning this next chapter in life -- free of familial obligations and censure, raising their brood in paradise. And then I see them returning to reality with a big old heavy thud. Daddy also got into Brown. Providence, R.I. was closer to parents, sister, brothers and much loved cousins. It was Ivy too and that’s always counted for a lot.

I’ve envied my friends who grew up in military families. They moved a ton too BUT they got to live in and travel around exotic places, even if just for a few years of their childhoods. This isn’t me being all ‘oh, poor me!’ -- no, this is just my imagination gone on walkabout. I also wonder what it might have been like to grow up in NYC, Northern California and Prince Edward's Island (yep, the Anne of Green Gables books were my absolute favorite). These being equally exotic in my book.

Having said all this, I’m a fortunate, blithe babe here on Hough’s Neck on the Massachusetts coast. This is Valhalla.