Daydreamer

The teachers were concerned, leaving notes for Mom and Dad regarding my “staring out the window” during class. Daydreaming they called it, the politically correct term for something more sinister, such as bad parenting or inferior character, their “go-to” conclusions in those days. Social anxiety, depression, the autism spectrum, and other so called mental health conditions were not yet common terminology. This was the seventies.

“He should visit with the school shrink,” they suggested.

“Let’s find out what he daydreams about while staring out the window, so we can address the situation.”

Mom and Dad were livid! How dare they suggest anything wrong with their little guy! The typical first reaction of parents in those days – the “possibility” of an “imperfect” child being a source of embarrassment.

“Oh nooo, not my child!”

And so for the next few days, Mom and Dad ranted and raved at the dinner table about the injustice and stupidity of it all.

“How dare they say such rubbish!”

“What are you staring at, Son? What is out there?”

“I don’t remember, Dad.”

Quick answers were for the best, so I could continue daydreaming at the dinner table, with minimal distraction. Truth be told, I tuned out the teachers at school, and so I was not about to waste time talking about them at home – my sanctuary for undisturbed daydreaming. Nor would I justify my detached staring outside the window. Why explain such a thing? Yes, I was daydreaming! I was not catatonic, schizophrenic, narcoleptic, nor playing with myself under the desk. I was DAYDREAMING…of what I no longer remember, but daydreaming, pure and simple – no other explanation.

The wheels were set in motion, though, and I was scheduled to see the school psychologist, not knowing what would go on, other than having a private chat with a stranger about whatever was “supposedly” wrong with me.

Dad warned me, “Isaac, don’t tell her about anything that goes on here, okay? Nothing about the conversations here, it is not to leave this table, okay Son?”

“I would never do that, Dad.” Hmm, why not? I thought to myself. What was he worried about? Being implicated as the source of my maladaptive daydreaming?

The psychologist was a twenty-something gal, with long blonde hair that just hung there with a flowery clean smell that drifted to my nose, and a string of beads around her neck, like she’d just returned from Woodstock. Her eyes were a sky blue, very wide, dilated from pot smoking maybe, giving the impression of wonderment at me, as if a miracle child had just passed through the door. And this elicited a smile out of my usually flat expression. She reached out with her hand, shaking mine, and it felt warm and good, as did the way she smiled at me and invited me to talk about my day.

Mom and Dad had it all wrong, I thought to myself. Everyone should have a therapist! Someone to be known by and share one’s daydreams with, including the creature hiding in my Dad’s shed – that dark, damp little cottage in the backyard with the unfinished wood, and all of Dad’s tools and toxic sprays, and the woman in garters.

I don’t remember why I daydreamed about a creature in Dad’s shed. In fact, I can’t say for sure whether it was a daydream or an intentional lie of some sort. My memories from that time are too rearranged by now to apprehend what my mind was doing right then and there. What I remember, though, and this can be verified by family, is that I watched the “creature double feature” specials on Saturday afternoons with Mom – our special one on one time together. And Mom seemed entertained by those ugly creatures. So, just maybe, I surmised that stories of ugly creatures were the path to a woman’s heart, an attention getter – the inexperienced, naive conclusion of a ten year old dealing with his first crush. And so I spent each and every therapy session telling tall tales about the creature in Dad’s shed.

Daydream or lie, I ventured into it with elaborate detail and a passion, spilling out some of my own disguised baggage, such as my fear of the poison spray bottles lining Dad’s makeshift shelf, and that black and white photo of the woman in garters, the one sitting inside the fourth drawer down in Dad’s tool dresser. I didn’t rat out Dad, though, having transformed the old photo into a partially stripped woman being held hostage by a green, slimy creature – maybe a variation on the King Kong theme. Miss therapist gulped it all down, so it seemed, like she’d been starving herself too long on the bland, scholarly looking collection of psychology books on the shelf behind her. For the hour I spent with her, she never took her eyes off of me, appearing excited at every twist and turn of my tale.

Those eyes, Oh My God, those eyes, I can still see them widening and dilating at each crescendo of my narrative. And sometimes I would catch her just smirking at me for no reason, causing me to blush, stutter, and temporarily lose my way in the story. Her smile widening even more, she would say, “Take a deep breath, Isaac, continue when you are ready.” And while I composed myself, her eyes remained fixated on me, noticing every nuance and tic of my discomfort, which paradoxically made me more comfortable. I could have sat there quietly for 60 minutes while she stared at me, absorbed me, knew me. She was it for me, my first love!

I lived for those weekly sessions, daydreaming about her all week and weekend, up until the sacred time of our meeting. I would have sat there 8 hours a day if possible – narrating to her my ongoing tale or fib, the conduit to being discovered by her, known by her. It was worth going to school, enduring all that bullying, just to sit across from this earthy, sensual woman who searched my insides, as if I’d captured her attention like no other.

Yes, sometimes I wondered if she’d bought into my story, but this concerned me not. Infatuations always involve taking liberties with the truth, don’t you think? A lie tells the truth as much as the truth, maybe more so. Personal myths they call it nowadays. Anyway, I figured we were in agreement as to the lies, even if unstated.

After two or three months, though, the sessions abruptly came to an end. My parents attended a summary meeting with the therapist and concerned teachers, and that was that. Very little was said to me, other than my need to practice being more attentive in class, refraining from my incessant staring out the window.

The therapist hadn’t ratted me out regarding my creature stories, as nothing was mentioned by Mom and Dad, other than my well developed capacity for creative thinking – something for them to take away and brag about. No details about Dad’s shed were shared either, as Dad would have went off the wall knowing that I’d mentioned his holy shed, especially after his dinnertime warnings to not reveal anything personal.

I withdrew even further into my daydreaming after that, lost in flights of fancy over my therapist, my first love. In fact, I still daydream about her once in a blue moon – fantasizing they call it nowadays. Much of her detail is lost, but her attention to me and those eyes of wonder have stayed with me, always pasted onto my woman of the day, the current occupant of my latest daydream.

Anyway, here I am, still daydreaming many decades later, an old man daydreaming, but with a lot more to daydream about – all that accumulated residue of past experience, a lifetime of it. But, nobody pays attention anymore, no more ugly teachers complaining about me, no pretty therapists interested in diagnosing me, not without financial compensation or acceptable health insurance.

© 2020 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.