Woe to anyone who tries to figure out my taste in movies based on the collection I store upstairs in a cardboard box. Many of them are culled from the free piles of apartment buildings where I've lived, or else I found them in a secondhand store, or else I got them as a gift from people who don't really know me (like Secret Santas).
I was watching one of those movies on a throwaway night last December. One of the main characters remarked (ruefully) that her life was very small. It got me thinking about my own earthly trajectory, which could look teeny to an outsider. I'm not prone to shark-cage diving or bungee jumping. I don't remedy failed love affairs with transcontinental jaunts. I've never been the captain of a space ship or discovered a rare species of tree snail. I've never even made my own pasta.
To the naked eye, it would appear that I have a very small life.
But the naked eye can't see the rollicking joyride of pure imagination going on inside my head. I'm usually on some wild adventure to locations which make terre firma seem shabby indeed.
Our mercantile culture strives to turn make magic into a commodity. I'm guilty of that myself, and it's led to some dark, soul-searching moments (as well as some stilted, rotten art). But in the end, when I can't seem to figure anything out, I throw up my hands and go back to painting and writing and doing whatever humble, money-generating things it takes to keep my little ship afloat.
Wave to me when I sail past...