"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
-Eden Phillpotts

When I was little, there existed a hida-bed couch in my parent's living room. When my cousin would come over, we'd sometimes unfold the bed tucked within and stay up all night playing Nintendo, trying to rescue the princess and kill all the aliens.

When the bed was unfolded, there was an odd space at the head of the bed. It was the space where the bed would sleep when it wasn't in use. Sometimes, when we got bored, we'd hide in this space and talk about what it would be like in the future; what middleschool would be like, what it would be like to kiss, what it would be like to make out. The new system that was coming out soon, a new game, whether Leonardo really was the better Ninja Turtle.

When my cousin would go back to where he lived, the couch would get folded back up. I'd have to retrieve all the trinkets and gadgets we'd bring in there with us, make the bed, and fold it back into a couch. Every time it was folded in, I remember feeling a little sad. There was no longer a place to hide, only a couch - and the future seemed a little less fun.

***

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
- John Lennon

It would be safe to say I'm a dreamer. I spend most my days trying to blow through as many of my responsibilities as fast as I possibly can so that I may have time to: sit, watch people pass by my window, listen to the wind in the trees, watch the clouds roll over each other until they've passed on out of site, listen to the crickets at night.

My girlfriend asked me one time, what I liked most about summer. I must have prattled on for about 5 minutes about the wind, the crickets, the moon, thunderstorms, etc. She laughed at me and said, "You sound like a nature freak." She didn't know it then, and she doesn't know it now, but those sharp cuts of laughter hurt.

Why do people look down on dreamers? Why, with their stern faces and furrowed eyebrows, do they look at dreamers and say things like, "Get your head out of the clouds!" and, "You can't live on dreams and wishes!". I like my head in the clouds, it gives me perspective. My dreams give me drive. Everything I have ever aspired to do has begun with a dream.

And yet, we raise our children to be practical - coaching them all their lives to accept the mundane, stop pretending they're someone they're not, stop thinking they can move to a distant land and live in a hut, and grow up (JUST GROW UP!).

I say why? Why grow up? I'm about to complete my bachelors in computer science - not the hardest thing in the world, but no small feat. And yet, I keep my sense of childlike wonder so close to me. Peter Pan is still my favorite book, games - my favorite hobby, and every once in awhile I think that if I really tried, I mean really tried, I could fly.

What happens to us that we lose this wonder? How sad, how very, very, sad. When I see most people now, their faces bent towards the dirt, suits in tow, I can't help but feel sorry for them.

In them, I see my hida-bed - squished and folded into something practical, waiting to be unsprung and used for the next late-night adventure.

Dream"er (?), n.

1.

One who dreams.

2.

A visionary; one lost in wild imaginations or vain schemes of some anticipated good; as, a political dreamer.

 

© Webster 1913.

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