Delicious Fishes

There are moments when I catch a wisp of wistfulness for a life less ordinary.

Don't get me wrong - I love my life. It's a full and happy life, when I consider and add up the sum of the parts, and divide that by the possibilities. Sure, we could have more money and things, but would they really make us any happier than we are right now? I don't believe it. I have the now-rare luxury of not only being at home with my children, but also having the time to pursue writing, painting, an obsession for historical research, as well as the surprising joy of working as a volunteer tutor. I am rich indeed, in things more vital than spending money and shiny cars.

But sometimes, when the bustle of the boys is off at school and work, and I'm here in the rippling pool of silence, glimmers of dreams from the bottom of my mind resurface. Old half-forgotten fantasies swim up and catch themselves upon a fishing line I didn't even realize I'd cast out. Reeling in these catches I see them for the sodden boot, or old tire they are, and throw them back with a rueful laugh at what swims in the depths of my mind. But looking deep into the pool I see, swimming at the bottom, an elusive silvery school of fish who glint and shimmer with delicious potential, and I'm suddenly, ravenously, hungry.

And yet, I have said I am happy, content, so why search and crave for something more that perhaps would ruin my desire for what already is? The answer lies deep within me, perhaps even within all of us: an innate dis-satisfaction with wholesome fare, a desire for piquancy to flavor our perceptions, even at the risk of upsetting our philosophical stomachs, and retching forth that which sustains us.

We are all so much more than we appear on the surface, the shoulda coulda wouldas layered like so many coats of lacquer; each a separate chapter, regret, or dream of our lives, our selves. They combine to create an outer shell that gives no hint to the diverse layers it's actually made up of. Here, on this page, I am the same as I would seem to you in person. I have no patience for subterfuge, to be other than I am. But I confess: I have a secret longing for the sweet meat of those dream fish, spread upon the cracker-like layers of my inner selves.