The Seven Wonders of My World--#2

Thoughts while reading Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins.


I do it every day and yet this afternoon was the first time I've truly considered the amazing ability I have to bilocate--to be in two different places at the same time.

Sitting on my porch--listening to the twittering of sparrows, vaguely aware of the plastic seat supporting my tush--I was simultaneously standing with Opal on her porch in Tennessee when a woman from the TVA came to inform her, her house would soon be under water.

How is it possible that I take for granted this astonishing power to transport myself. Shouldn't I view it as miraculous, hopping from zip code to zip code, or from country to country? What about jet streaming instantly through decades and centuries?

I know what you're going to say. All together now, writers! "WE are the ones who create this miracle."

Oh, please. Let's show a little humility. Give some credit to the person on the other side of the page or the screen. It's the reader who willingly suspends disbelief when we go on about dragons and fairies, the reader who hyperventilates during one of Anita's creepy tours, then chokes back tears when one of you poetic-types hits the nail resoundingly on top of her innocent head.

With only a modicum of talent from a writer, a reader's brain takes countless personal experiences and memories and mingles them together with the printed words to draw out a full spectrum of emotions. So really, don't you think it's time we stopped being quite so full of ourselves?

I mean, it's the darn muse who does most of the work, anyway.