One of the thoughts that used to come to mind often was that time mid-morning when one might make a cup of tea or coffee and have a time out. I would try to imagine all the other people doing something similar and that was a pleasant thought - all the people in their homes or out on the site or on the farm brewing themselves a cup of tea. I suppose, I was imagining that the brewing of tea, or coffee, created a connection, an imagined connection.
I have been thinking about the power of imagination lately. I suppose you could call it manifestation, although I don't often have that element of 'this will happen' in it. I simply use my imagination to take a little break from what is happening in front of me. I have always done this. I think another word might be disassociation, I might take myself out of a dull conversation for a few seconds and just think my own thoughts.
I delighted recently in a story Jimmy Fallon told about growing up knowing that he would be on Saturday Night Live. The interviewer asked him, 'what if it hadn't happened?'. He was emphatic. There was just no way it wouldn't have happened in some form, he said. There was no way he wouldn't have made it happen.
My husband said something similar last night over dinner. When he was young, he said, on the farm, he came to have this feeling that he would do something special out in the big world. He wasn't entirely sure quite what, although by the time he was ending his undergraduate degree, he knew it would involve world markets. When he achieved his dream, I think it was the happiest time of his life.
He is very unwell now, but he has this huge belief that he will get better, and seeing how he manifested his dream job, it's hard not to believe him, whilst at the same time, I said to him yesterday, 'Can you please let me take it one step at a time?'
We are very different in this way. I much prefer things to be steady. I like the day to day. I like morning tea. Like that. I like making dinner. I like meeting up with my adult children. I enjoy the beautiful morning sun we are experiencing this winter. I like it when the camelias bloom.
Well, of course, this was the attraction for me, wasn't it? The polar opposite of myself. The guy with adventure in his soul; the dream in his heart. Who else could take me out of myself in this way? Who else could challenge a degree of complacency in my being, the comfort in the day to day?
Man, at times it has been a struggle. My inner being wants to scream, can't things just be normal? But that's the thing, isn't it? What is normal anyway?
You know what though? I think I am at peace with the different perspectives now. I'm curious about it rather than discombobulated about it. I think after nearly 50 years, I am getting used to it.
