day-dream believer...

i read Anne of Green Gables today.
it was a beautiful rainy day, i began the book two days ago and after choir i decided to nab a mocha from the campus coffee shop and sit on a bench near a sidewalk that would *hopefully* not be traveled on too much. the concrete bench was situated so i could lean against a tree... irresistable. i sat there for an hour and a half until i had finished reading. (albeit the sidewalk did not prove silent... a large group of furutre sports' team recruits passed by. they loved my red converse at anyrate. another distraction was one of my friends going by on roller blades. that startled me, but not as much as i startled him. ha!)
The book was a fantastic read because it really made me relive a lot of things from when i was smaller... both Anne and i daydream. perhaps the difference lies in that i would sit and dream in silence... swing during recess by myself from grade 1-8 under that tree. gaze out at the jr. high's track field and dream of there being a horse barn there. i lived at school, you see. i left school and no one noticed the smart kid in the corner everyone made fun of being gone. i would then come back as a cool kid, anything; a motercross rider, a famous guitar player, a hockey player, an olympic speedskater, an olympic equestrian events competitor... anything. i came back to school and everyone wanted to be my friend. they thought i was so important, and then in one climactic moment i would reveal that it was i! lindsay! the one they had shunned and mocked, the one they had taunted, exlcuded, and called stupid! i would forgive them all and make them see that their ways were not right, thye would desperatly wish to be my friend yet i kew they would not change. and after all, i had my big brother the motercross-competing/speed-skating/horse-riding/hockey playing older brother and his friends that would all look after me and be my friends and extended family. no parents. just my brother and his friends. i would sleep on a couch in the upstairs where the three third grade classes were, like a loft room, and go ride the black horse stabled in the track field.


or at least that's how the dream went.
all of that came back to me as i was reading.
i daydreamed a great deal in addition to that, perhaps not the 'romance' Anne dreamed of, yet it was quite an adventure nontheless. i would write mysel finto my favorite books and enver have a life as my own, yet always would return to school and the other students would want to be my friends until they found out it was me.
in reality, i lived in these fantasies yet was acutely aware of what was around me, what false rumor there was about me that day, who was nice to me for a fleeting moment during the day.
...except when i read straight through recess and lunch. this happened often. i had no idea the class was gone.


at first when i read Anne of Green Gables I did not think the girl was much like me at all. then as the book progressed i say them quite blatant on the page, yet as i said, i dreamed in silence. before this post, all of that was in my head. for the past 14 years. Anne let everyone in on her plans until one day she learned to dream silently...


perhaps since Anne learned to dream silently, i now need to learn to dream out loud.




that being said, this book (and watching Little Bear with my room mate... WIN) made me more determined that if i do ever have kids they will be sent outside to explore and play instead of computer. have building blocks instead of video games. Anne of Green Gables instead of books based on TV series. but mostly: sent outside.


i don't know what i would do if God took the outdoors away from me...
wait, this has been done. the feeling of outdoors can persist.