“You didn’t tell me about her,” Bobbie said with mimimal intonation, when I described the photo to the left as my subway fantasy. Of course I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell anyone else either. Hell, I hardly told me. Talking about fantasies was never pushed during my growing up period, that time of life when lifelong habits are formed. Keep in mind I’m talking about growing up lower middle class in New England (Hartford, Connecticut) during the 1940’s and ’50’s. Sure, I once found a book of naughty cartoons entitled Over Sexteen under a stack of blankets in the little nameless room just off the living room. I still remember it’s definition of a Sweater Girl, a concept that’s long passed from popular culture. That definition: a woman who pulls your eyes over the wool. If there was any other sex-oriented material in the apartment, it must have been in the eyes and the sweat of my parents. Lord knows I looked–how do you think I found Over Sexteen?–thoroughly and without success. The lesson: fantasies are a private affair, and that’s undoubtedly what made them so delicious.
Today fantasies have been replaced with acting out. Men with the outlines of their erections showing grace the billboards above Times Square. Prostitution services advertise both on television and in the Yellow Pages. Two of New York’s three daily newspapers keep us abreast of the comings (yes, puns intended) and goings of the actors and politicians who live out their fantasy lives for our amusement and envy. Sex toys, tools and videos are even offered in those catalogs which specialize in raised toilet seats for seniors and the otherwise infirm.
Now before this post is mistaken for a rant against the present and nostalgic longing for the good old days, let me assure you that it is neither. It’s actually no more than me noting one more instance in which I’ve caught myself carrying Then into my interaction with Now. When I do this unawares, it creates confusions and frustrations. When I become aware of it, the opportunity for learning and even growth appears. I write about it because, being just one of the crowd, this is a habit I share with a great many people. Maybe even with you, dear reader.
So here’s my question to you: What are you holding onto? What beliefs, opinions, verities, prejudices re yourself, others and the world still color the glasses through which you look at it all? Hit the reddish “comments” word at the end of this and tell me all about it.
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