DAYDREAMING

 

A series of essays….

MY PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION OF AN
IMPRESSIONISTIC PAINTING ENTITLED:
POOLSIDE (2007)

….as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E Hughes

The perfectly angled autumn sun pours its golden light down upon the swirling water while the reflection of a thousand dancing fairies shimmer above me on the high-glossed, paneled ceiling. I am sitting on my lanai and daydreaming. Staring up at the tongue and groove boards, I observe brilliant white light, texture, and fluid movement as the nymphs play their afternoon games of hide and seek. My heart is filled with joy!

I have always been a daydreamer. Sister Teresa understood and encouraged me. As long as I was able to answer her questions when called upon in class, my fantasy worlds were windows of opportunity for me, as far as she was concerned. Yes, she always understood. A fellow dreamer, perhaps?

Not every Sister or lay teacher I had in Catholic School was able to perceive the importance of my mini-travels to the stars and back. Avid reading, however, was acceptable, and I always did my fair share of that. After exhausting Carolyn Keene's adventures with the help of Nancy Drew, I set my sights on F. W. Dixon and checked-out as many Hardy Boys Mystery Stories as they would allow me to each week from our small school library. The bus ride home each day was extensive and permitted me ample time to consume multiple chapters before hearing the whoosh of the bus door closing behind me. 

The addition of writing coupled with the joy of reading came early on in life. By first grade I was begging my Mother to purchase extra notebooks for school, I would turn them into spiral bound journals filled with line after line of cursive script intended for my eyes only. Carefully hiding them in stacks beneath my bed, it was never my intent, at that time, to share my past, present, or future with another living soul. 

The nomadic lifestyle imposed upon my family due to my father's employment made it difficult to hide much beneath my bed for very long considering the floor it rested upon changed from one year to the next. The dust bunnies barely had sufficient time to accumulate. Not only was I a wanderer within my own head but, with each move and having to adjust to each new school, new house, and new set of friends, our small, restless mobile society contributed to my need for movement and travel later on in life.

When my dad decided to finally settle down, he brought us to Michigan where I was enrolled in our public high school that included an eighth-grade level program. Growing-up required bidding adieu to the ladies donning black habits and beaded (rosary) accessories one year and hello to walking the halls alongside a student body that was eighty percent older than myself. I was now changing classrooms each hour and having to consciously recall my locker combination or be left standing alone in the hall like a fish out of water. I survived and matured because of the experience.

It was around this time that two amazing realizations occurred that have served to mold and change my life forever. I fell in love with France, all things to do with France, and knew that I could consciously submerge myself in her culture, language, people, and history and be happy the rest of my life. Secondly, it was time to share my thoughts with anyone who would be willing to read about them. I became a writer at fourteen years old. My first poem entitled "Time" was published in our local newspaper and after that, I never looked back.

There is a fine line between the conscious and the subconscious mind. Traveling between them can be an interesting adventure, especially when the journey itself is used as a coping mechanism allowing you to exist despite teenage challenges. The observation of 'visible energy' surrounding me was developed, encouraged and always felt natural. After all....I had had several years of practice by then. Because we can see light with our eyes, it has special significance to us. Rainbows show how visible energy is a combination of many colors. I often relied upon my vivid imagination to transform a negative situation into a positive experience. 

To this day, daydreaming, triggered by visible energy, attracts me like a Super Magnet. Pulled into a vortex of encircling emotions and ideas, my interpretations can be transformed from the ordinary to the extraordinary in moments. Unlike most of our stage five dreams at night during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep that may be forgotten upon awakening, daydreaming affords us the luxury of sustained recall. In case you were wondering, yes, I do sleep with a pad of paper and a pencil on the night stand.....just in case.

The motion that triggers a reaction in me and stimulates my desire to daydream can be as complicated and exquisite as being transfixed by the languid shadow of the backyard live oak tree as it spills its brilliant summer colors onto the swimming pool's aquamarine ripples. Or, as simple as the sunlight reflecting off of my watch creating 'Tinker Bell' choreography on the family room walls. Light. Motion. A  combination capable of bridging the gap between conscious and subconscious thoughts and my personal recipe for a creative concoction certain to be utilized, expanded upon and served-up with imaginative flair in the near future.

Looking up at my dancing fairies this afternoon as I daydream the moments away, I am reminded of a quote by Sir Richard Branson, the highly successful English businessman and investor who said, "Don't ever let anyone prevent you from dreaming. Imagination is one of our greatest gifts. Don't just dream it. Go out and grab it with both hands." 

Daydreaming is as close to reality as I sometimes want to be and it is much more important than the simple involvement of idle reverie or indulging in pipe dreams. Daydreaming has been and will always be my way of witnessing and then describing the softened edges of a granite hard world.....through the eyes and soul of a writer. Life seen through my eyes!

Copyright © 2024 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved

Photograph copyright © 2024 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved

THE FLEXIBILITY OF DAYDREAMING

 

A series of essays….

ALWAYS BE ENCOURAGED
TO KEEP SWINGING HIGH UP INTO THE SKY!

….as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E Hughes

Sitting on the deck, I was staring out into the distance while waiting to pick up our grandson for basketball practice. A cool breeze began to penetrate the warm, lazy Sunday afternoon. At about the same time, the younger of the two sisters living next door could barely be seen skipping through the openings of the massive broadleaved trees that separate and permeate our two backyards.

Before I could see her in motion, I could hear her on one of the chain swings her parents had installed under the branches of a sturdy oak tree years ago. In the time that we’ve owned our property, over six years now, I will always remember the sounds of those swings. With their eleven gauge pipe top rail and pipe beam swing hangers and clevis pendulums rusting a little bit more each year, I have taken comfort in them for all of this time. 

By the time she reached just the right height, it was a rhythm of one long screech going backwards, one long screech going forward until she reached the pinnacle of her forward motion and the sound became a short series of heavy clangs, metal pipe on pipe type of clangs, until she floated backwards into one, long screech again. The repetitive sounds were mesmerizing.

Our little chant has always been, “WD-40 that thing!” But, we always knew how disappointed we would be if they ever did.

Every child earns the right to engage in this hypnotic state of floating in the air powered and strengthened by their own muscles and body movements. This offers them a chance at dreaming, hoping, plotting, and planning without any interruptions; without a care in the world. And, I’m pretty certain that the steady rhythm of clangs and screeches attributes to this spellbinding state of mind.

This seemingly mindless state of being while swinging aloft, then smoothly transitioning to a backwards momentum, and repeat, could be envied by most adults. If memory serves me well, I did a lot of thinking up there myself, legs bending backwards and forwards, pumping hard as I’d climb higher and higher on the sturdy metal swing set until I felt the momentum would take me up and over the top bar. If this happened, I thought I would either be flung from the wooden seat entirely, or the centrifugal force would keep me seated and able to swing for minutes longer until I was brave enough to do it again! Of course — I never tested these theories out.

Holding onto the chains for dear life, impressing metal links into small palms, my white canvas sneakers, the little blue ‘Keds’ label flapping from their rubber heals,  would push into the fluffy, white clouds and blue summer sky with each upward swing. On the backwards swing, their gum soles would gently graze the indented ground, the gray gash formed by innumerable sets of small, braking feet. Once stopped, they would fly off with friends to the waiting seesaw, roundabout (merry-go-round), jungle gym, or hot metal slides to play.

Eventually, as a young parent, I learned never to underestimate the intelligence of a child. My own daughters played hard, learned quickly, and never failed to surprise us by soaking in the enormity of the complex world they lived in. Thinking back on the many times they spent swinging back and forth, eyes affixed to the sky, how the daydreams must have flowed within their subconscious world lulled by the clouds, birds singing, and repetitive movement.

Utilizing the solace the swing provided, I recall plotting all sorts of ideas regarding my future plans. I would become a ‘stewardess’ because of my desire to travel. (I had applied to United Airlines soon after my eighteen birthday.) Maybe the religious life was calling me and I’d become a missionary nun, clad in a white habit, and travel into the far corners of the world in order to help others. (That travel theme again!) What will my new friends be like after we moved from Terre Haute, Indiana, up to Three Rivers, Michigan? Maybe I will become a writer in the style of Ernest Hemingway and live my life telling stories to others about what I see and feel everywhere I go. I should become a photojournalist!

Would I ever be married? At the time, I didn’t think so because the life I foresaw for myself was going to be so busy and justifiably fulfilling in and of itself. I had a lot to accomplish and, I felt, very little time to do it all in. 

Holding my own daughters in my arms for the first time convinced me that I truly had taken the right path in this life. I had so much to offer them; the love of travel, reading books, making-up stories, and writing poetry among them.  But, most of all, we allowed them to swing into the clouds themselves and discover who they were and how they would fit into this world as they were growing up. A daily dose of love, imagination, and daydreaming will take a child on a daily journey into that wonderful world of discovery. 

As I continued to sit in the soft breeze and listen to the screeches and clangs of the swing next door, I realized that this young lady had a lot of dreaming to do! After all, she’d been climbing up into the sky and back down again for quite some time already. I was grateful to her for this because it induced memories from within me that I hadn’t explored for a very long time. She made me realize that no matter what age we achieve, we should never stop filling our minds with new hopes and dreams for the future. We must always be encouraged to keep swinging high up into the sky! We all deserve it.

Life is a noisy backyard swing that we occupy for as long as possible before passing it down to our own children and grandchildren. The swing is a booster shot meant to protect and carry each generation into their own future by way of soaring dreams that may or may not be fulfilled; grand avenues to explore and discover what is possible. After all, even our dreams should remain as flexible and potent as our personal desires —  no matter how old we are.

Copyright © 2021 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved

DAYDREAMING

A series of essays.....

My Photographic Interpretation of an Impressionistic Painting Entitled:
"Poolside" and Taken During the Summer of 2007

.....as seen through my eyes!




By: Jacqueline E. Hughes



The perfectly angled autumn sun pours its golden light down upon the swirling water and the reflection of a thousand dancing fairies shimmers above me on the high-glossed, paneled ceiling. I am sitting on my lanai and daydreaming. Staring up at the tongue and groove boards, I observe brilliant white light, texture, and fluid movement as the nymphs play their afternoon games of hide and seek. My heart is filled with joy!

I have always been a daydreamer. Sister John-Marie understood and encouraged me. As long as I was able to answer her questions when called upon in class, my fantasy worlds were windows of opportunity for me, as far as she was concerned. Yes, she always understood. A fellow dreamer, perhaps?

Not every Sister or lay teacher I had in Catholic school was able to perceive the importance of my mini-travels to the stars and back. Avid reading, however, was acceptable, and I always did my fair share of that. After exhausting Carolyn Keene's adventures with the help of Nancy Drew, I set my sights on F. W. Dixon and checked-out as many Hardy Boys Mystery Stories as they would allow me to each week from our small school library. The bus ride home each day was extensive and permitted me ample time to consume multiple chapters before hearing the 'whoosh' of the bus door closing behind me.

The addition of writing coupled with the joy of reading came early on in life. Begging my Mother to purchase extra notebooks for school, I would turn them into spiral bound journals filled with line after line of cursive script intended for my eyes only. Carefully hiding them in stacks beneath my bed, it was never my intent, at that time, to share my past, present, or future with another living soul.

The nomadic lifestyle imposed upon my family due to my Father's employment made it difficult to hide much beneath my bed for very long considering the floor it rested upon changed from one year to another. The dust bunnies barely had ample time to accumulate. Not only was I a wanderer within my own head, but with each move and having to adjust to each new school, new house, and new set of friends, our small 'restless mobile society' contributed to my need for movement and travel later on in life.

When my Dad decided to finally settle down, he brought us to Michigan where I was enrolled in our public high school that included an eighth-grade level program. Growing-up required bidding adieu to the ladies donning black habits and beaded rosary accessories one year and hello to walking the halls alongside a student body that was eighty percent older than myself. I was now changing classrooms each hour and having to consciously recall my locker combination or be left standing alone in the hall like a fish out of water. I survived and matured because of the experience.

It was around this time that two amazing realizations occurred that have served to mold and change my life forever. I fell in love with France, all things to do with France and knew that I could consciously submerge myself in her culture, language, people, and history and be happy the rest of my life. Secondly, it was time to share my thoughts with anyone who would be willing to read about them. I became a writer at fourteen years old. My first poem entitled "Time" was published in our local newspaper and after that, I never looked back.

There is a fine line between the conscious and the subconscious mind. Traveling between them can be an interesting adventure, especially when the journey itself is used as a coping mechanism allowing you to exist despite teenage challenges. The observation of 'visible energy' surrounding me was developed, encouraged and always felt natural. After all....I had had several years of practice by then. I often relied upon my vivid imagination to transform a negative situation into a positive experience.

To this day, daydreaming, triggered by visible energy, attracts me like a Super Magnet. Pulled into a vortex of encircling emotions and ideas, my interpretations can be transformed from the ordinary to the extraordinary in moments. Unlike most of our stage five dreams at night during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep that may be forgotten upon awakening, daydreaming affords us the luxury of sustained recall. In case you were wondering, yes, I do sleep with a pad of paper and a pencil on the night stand.....just in case.

The motion that triggers a reaction in me and stimulates my desire to daydream can be as complicated and exquisite as being transfixed by the languid shadow of the backyard live oak tree as it spills its brilliant summer colors onto the swimming pool's aquamarine ripples. Or, as simple as the sunlight reflecting off of my watch creating 'Tinker Bell' choreography on the family room walls. Light. Motion. A  combination capable of bridging the gap between conscious and subconscious thoughts and my personal recipe for a creative concoction certain to be utilized, expanded upon and served-up with imaginative flair in the near future.

Looking up at my dancing fairies this afternoon as I daydream the moments away, I am reminded of a quote by Sir Richard Branson, the highly successful English businessman and investor who said, "Don't ever let anyone prevent you from dreaming. Imagination is one of our greatest gifts. Don't just dream it. Go out and grab it with both hands."

Daydreaming is as close to reality as I sometimes want to be and it is much more important than the simple involvement of idle reverie or indulging in pipe dreams. Daydreaming has been and will always be my way of witnessing and then describing the softened edges of a granite hard world.....through the eyes and soul of a writer.


Copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved

Photograph copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved

JAMES THURBER....WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

Series of short stories...

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

 Through My Eyes....

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes


Yesterday I had the privilege of watching the new release of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty starring Ben Stiller, Kristin Wiig and Sean Penn. Today I will be searching everywhere for the 1947 version with Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo......you know, just for comparison/research!?!

I have long been a fan of Mr. James Grover Thurber: Cartoonist, author, journalist and playwright. A man with many hats but, he may be best known for his publication of cartoons and short stories in The New Yorker magazine in the 1930's. Along with his witty humor that highlighted the eccentricities of ordinary people, I would call him and his work the forerunners of today's Blogger and Blog sites and can only imagine the amount of wit and humor we have missed out on due to his placement in history! Can you imagine his productivity on a computer?

NBC's 1969 sitcom entitled My World and Welcome to It was based on stories and things that go bump in the night....by James Thurber. We were simply 'glued to the set' each week and could never get enough of the wild imagination of the main character, John Monroe (William Windom), and his interaction with wife, Ellen (Joan Hotchkis), and precocious daughter, Lydia (Lisa Gerritsen), who at ten was more interested in world and historical affairs than playing with toys.

To best illustrate and explain these events to his daughter, John relied on his imagination. Being a cartoonist, he often utilized the use of animation (based on Thurber cartoons) in his explanations. It was much like witnessing a public 'frontal lobotomy' for the sake of extracting the complete depth of John's imagination and placing it on the 'little screen' rather than to relieve any signs of depression. Although, this extraction often resulted in marked personality changes.

Twenty years later Ally McBeal's use of cartoon fantasies promoted a similar technique that helped her describe her co-workers and acquaintances. Loved that show, too! I'm a sucker for cartoons and lots of humor! Who will ever forget the dancing diapered baby, right?

Returning to Walter Mitty for just a moment....

As a writer, I have every reason in the world to identify with, encourage and promote 'Walter Mitty,' as well as enthusiastically remind all of us that without mental creative ability (imagination) in our lives, the world, as we know it, would be severely restricted, if not non-existent. The mind is the incubator for all things imagined and, ultimately, produced.....good or evil; right or wrong! It would be like taking away all adjectives from our spoken and written existence. Would it be, let's say, interesting to stand alone...black...white, with absolutely no color in between them? A world without the visual joy or colorful interpretation of Claude Monet's Water Lilies or the lack of descriptive character and flourish in the words utilized by a favorite author in his/her novel? A city lacking the indisputable distinguishing landmarks offered by its architecture that allow us to identify it via a single photograph. Cameras......no; a world without photography? Absolutely preposterous!

All of the above simply would not exist without our imagination!

Yes, unfortunately, the bad does mirror the good and we experience war, hunger, poverty, hate and the 'green eyed' monster called jealousy.

In the nearly two hours of immersing myself within scene after scene of Walter Mitty, I was able to temporarily forget about the negative and concentrate on the rugged and isolated beauty of both Greenland and Iceland. I followed Walter Mitty on water, land and in the air on his quest to find the most important piece of the puzzle; the one piece that, when inserted into its proper slot, would allow him to understand the true simplicity of his journey. His mission: To discover himself!  To rediscover Joy and Love!  To be Happy! 

He did.....and, along the way, Walter Mitty learned to love himself and with his newfound knowledge he was better able to understand his raisin d'être...the reason for his existence. Through the use of humor and a common goal, James Thurber's published short story, The Secret World of Walter Mitty, in The New Yorker so many years ago, spawned an amazing variety of entertainment for the masses with 'imagination' conducting the symphony that builds and builds to the crescendo of personal enlightenment!

Thurber, born in Columbus, Ohio in 1894, attended University at Ohio State.......a 'Buckeye.' I will try not to hold that against him! He lived and worked in Paris, France, as a freelance writer and reporter until he was hired by The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor upon the recommendation of E .B. White (of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little fame). Thurber eventually concentrated on writing humorous short stories and his many cartoons and both he and White are credited with establishing The New Yorker's sophisticated tone. Both served on the staff of the magazine, according to The Early Shapers of The New Yorker, until Thurber resigned in 1933 but, he continued to contribute to the magazine.

I totally became a huge fan of The New Yorker while attending Michigan State University working at the Pesticide Research Center on a Work Study program. The science field has never been 'my thing' so please don't ask me how I secured that job other than I was a warm body who always showed-up for work. Anyway, within the freezing grip of a blustery winter term, the girls in the lab would take shelter in the woman's lounge for breaks. Stacked high on the table there I soon discovered nirvana in the form of weekly copies of The New Yorker that dated back several months and would keep me happy and occupied for hours. Dr. Zabik, the head of our department, would always find me harboring a copy or two by my side as I went about performing my daily lab duties.

To see one's byline and short story printed in The New Yorker meant that you had attained your goal and then far exceeded it in the same breath, if being a published author was your dream and desire. From that astronomical height, there would be few if any rejections of a future book deal. And, monetary reward and fame were imminent.

Oh, James Thurber, where are you now?

That starry-eyed young woman with ambition and hope still exists today.  Okay....the package is a bit crumpled and wrinkled now but, oh!, the life experience she's tucked away for future reference is absolutely amazing!  The places she's travelled to and the people she's met, gotten to know and still calls.....friend, speaks volumes.  Mr. Thurber....that young woman has done pretty well for herself in this world so far.  The great thing is, she knows her journey isn't even close to being completed.  Got a ways to go, for sure.  Got a few more mountains to climb and the trail up to their peaks is lined with adventure and discovery.  But, all-in-all, it's looking bright and shiny from where she stands right now......

If I could speak with you face-to-face, Mr. Thurber, I would thank you for so many things: Making us laugh, giving us hope, translating that hope into Joy and Love and, for challenging us every step of the way....making us stronger and more worthy.



And, I would thank you for that enormous stack of The New Yorker magazines that helped me discover, as a freshman in college, just who and what I wished to become one day.    





E. B. White and James Thurber on staff at The New Yorker