A Safe Place To Daydream

Julie didn’t hesitate, she answered like she’d been waiting for the question. “My papasan chair.”

I had to think back, a long way, back from when we lived together. I tried to picture her condo, the second floor, and then there it was: the mental image of the papasan, the wicker pod with that enormous green cushion. It was in the study with her bookshelves, and she used to get up inside it- pull her legs up underneath her like a cat- close her eyes and sigh, lost in thought. I could picture it, and I realized I was smiling.

“And what do you daydream about?

Julie exhaled and uncurled a grin. “Sunshine,” she said, without a doubt, “I can feel it all over my body. Sunshine and people I love."

Magnus took a minute, took a long sip of his beer, wiped the foam from his upper lip, and he told me: “The movies.”

“You daydream at the movies?”

“Let me tell you something: I hate the movies. Same stories, same pretty faces... but in the dark, with the lights down, and all those people sitting around me... I get lost. I get... gone.”

“And what do you daydream about?”

“The Summer I was nine,” he said, without a doubt, “and bass fishing with my Dad."

My daughter looked up from her Caeser Salad, fork like a pointer. She was laughing at me.

“For me? I don’t know, that’s a good one.”

She was humoring me, and then sudden, for real: “The tanning salon.”

“The tanning salon?”

“They put off all the lights, and I’m alone in that hum and away from the kids... I just forget everything else and let my mind go.”

“And what do you daydream about?”

“Hotels. In outer space.” She stood up and headed for the rest room and then, without a doubt: “Being on a spaceship alone, cruising through the stars."

The grilled ham and cheese.. the grilled ham and cheese was delicious.

The waitress came over while I sat alone taking notes. She had a bold smile on her cheeks as she refilled my water glass: “And what about you? Where’s your safe place to daydream?”

I looked up from my notebook, blinking, remembering where I was. I looked down at the wet ink drying on the words I had realized.

“The empty page,” I said. I sat up straight.

The waitress beamed, flipped the hair out of her face. “And what do you daydream about?”

“Everything. All of it,” I said, noticing the jasmine in her eyes, admiring her slim fingers.

“Without a doubt.”