How did you learn to daydream?

I must apologize for being so amiss with my blog. 

I remember years ago, near Christmas the Sears catalog arrived in the mail.  This was an exciting time for us, well for me.  I know some of you are saying you never saw a Sears catalog.  Nonetheless, it did exist, with a special “wish list” catalog for the holidays.

Now our youthful years did not have an overabundance of things.  My dad had a saying he was famous for in our house.  “Do you want it, or do you need it?”  I am not saying we went without, but we had few extras.

I had a friend I would visit, who had a record player and 45 RPM records.  She had so many clothes she could not fit them in her closet.  Now those were definitely extras.

Okay, I have sidetracked myself again so back to the catalog.  Mom would give us a sheet of paper, and tell us to record the page number, the item description, and the item number.  She showed us where to find the item numbers.

Oh, I can remember trying to be so exacting so Mom and Dad would have no question as to the things I wanted.  There were so many things to choose.  I looked at clothes, toys, even a pet.  Yes, back then Sears sold pets in their catalogs.

The excitement was almost overwhelming.  I was going to get all those great things I picked out of the catalog. 

Mom would collect our sheets then say, “Wasn't that fun?”  What?  I am thinking, no kitchen set up, no record player, no puppy, no baby doll?  Keep in mind I was about six at the time.  I realized I wasn't going to get all the things I picked out.  My disappointment was as overwhelming as was my earlier excitement. 

Today, I do know now that Mom and Dad would look over each of our lists and they would buy a few of the smaller items for the holiday gift giving.  Not to mention, the process kept us busy and out of her hair for some time.

As a child, I thought it was such a cruel thing to do to us.  We were all excited and then we were crestfallen.  Okay, I will agree in my childish way it was exciting.  I had a brief time of imagining all the places I would put the record player, and the kitchen and dolls would go to the basement where a playroom was set up for us, but now I had to let it go.  An early lesson of you can't have everything you want.

Here I am all these years later still finding myself daydreaming.  In my reveries, I am able to think about what kind of house I would want to live in, what kind of modern gadgets I would put to use in my daily life.  Then it dawns on me, Mom taught us to dream and dream big.  She also taught us that not all of our daydreams came true.  Nonetheless, I hear her saying; “Wasn't that fun?”

Yes Mom, and to this day at the age of 61 I still find myself daydreaming.  It is a fun thing to do, and for a writer a valuable tool. 

There was no way Mom would have known she was also stirring the beginnings of a writer. 

Thanks Mom!