Yesterday I dragged out an old computer I had saved with the intention of retrieving the files that marked that particular era of our lives but never got around to actually performing the seemingly simple task. Eager to rid the house of the excess clutter that builds quietly and then looms glaringly from every room, I heaved the heavy, dated monitor onto the dining room table and began plugging the various cords and wires into the components of the computer. Sitting, untouched, for years had little effect as, before long, the family huddled around the unwieldy time capsule and uncovered long lost family moments with the click of the mouse. The girls marveled at carefully crafted birthday invitations and storybooks that they composed for cousins. We laughed at all of the pictures where the two of them appeared in various costumes, enacting the tales.
I spent too much time pouring over the rather large volume of abandoned writings marked with both naiveté and promise and drove the family away as I scrolled through page after page of forgotten ideas. Craig returned later and made valiant attempts to rescue our files without success. The computer could not read a flash drive. Although it could read a CD, it did not have the capability to burn files to a CD. I left Craig trying to connect a portable hard drive to the computer and started dinner in the next room. Overcome by frustration, Craig started perusing his old drawing files. He found his drawings from the very first renovations to our home, the studio design sited in a different location than where it stands and a benched trellis that we never built.
Lise, intrigued by her father’s exclamations as he uncovered each design, joined him and listened as Craig walked her through framing plans and finish schedules. They soon happened upon the design for a doll house that Santa gave the girls many years ago. Lise, at ten, knew about the suspicious nature of Santa Claus. Talk at school and every made for TV Christmas movie plants doubt into the minds of otherwise eager believers in the wonderful idea and generosity of Santa Claus. Lise knew but this was the first time she heard the words spoken unequivocally with clear supporting evidence on the monitor in front of her.
The last vestiges of magical worlds intersecting her own fell in the quiet tears Lise shed as her mind converted all of her memories into the point of view of this spoken truth. I remember Miren’s similar experience with the same pain I felt with Lise. We were in the car and she asked if I was the tooth fairy. Caught off-guard, I looked at her through the rearview mirror and mumbled something about helping the tooth fairy. She didn’t buy it and so I explained my role as tooth taker. I glanced at her again and watched the tears fall as she connected the tooth fairy to the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. A sob escaped as she realized amid the ruins of crumbled fantasy worlds that the notes she often sent to Peter Pan in balloons to Neverland merely drifted through the sky, directionless.
Craig and I faced another of those moments recently. Even as adults, hearing the words that confirm growing suspicions send us staggering for a moment as we readjust our reality. Craig responds as a stalwart sailor in stormy seas while I struggle to get my sea legs. I am reminded of a book once lent to me about a journey at sea, from Europe to South America. The author describes the journey exquisitely and then excruciatingly as the unrelenting weather elongates the trip and his yearning for the sight of land grows into desperation that is passed onto the reader. I am that passenger. (by the way, if you were the one to lend me this book, know of the title or author please let me know – I’m driving myself crazy trying to remember)
The computer still sits on the table, both accessible and not. Lise continues to play through Christmas memories but with some humor. “Oh I get why you’re bummed when we’re not excited,” she said throwing her arms around me as we passed in the kitchen. “And a play station? Really? That’s so not like you,” she referenced a gift from some years ago. Rem interrupts by insisting that I brush his teeth. He’s been hearing the tooth fairy at night, well the buzzing of her wings, and he knows that she won’t take rotten teeth when the time comes (he doesn’t realize he has years to go before he starts losing his teeth). I’m happy that Rem keeps us connected to the possibilities of other worlds.
