Sunday, March 30, 2008 Gil: Make-believe By Sandy Gil Sunday Dunes
ONE quiet Sunday morning, as I mindlessly gazed outside the kitchen window, sipping my first mug of coffee for the day, a moving shadow unexpectedly caught my attention. It was the little eight-year old boy who lives across the street.
His eyes were wide and excited, furtively darting left and right; his movements were calculated. He was obviously sneaking out of his home.
What was rather unusual was that the little boy had covered his entire body with old newspaper, put together with tape and clothespin. He also wore a funny hat made of tin. As I looked closer, it turned out to be a cooking pot that had seen better days; it no longer had a handle. The little boy likewise held a thin wooden stick in one hand; on the other hand, he held the cover of the dilapidated cooking pot.
Assured that no one was watching him that quiet Sunday morning, he mightily stalked to the middle of street, his head held high; then he suddenly stopped, posed and with legs apart and his wooden stick held high, he shattered the morning silence with a piercing "YAAAAAAHH!!!!"
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I could not help but be amused and mesmerized. The little boy went on with various action movements and poses, accompanied by as many guttural sounds emanating from his skinny body -- all of which were apparently extensively studied and definitely copied from TV shows he must have watched.
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I recall my own days of childhood make-believe. As a little girl, I used to play house with my sisters, a normal activity that I am sure little girls continue to play these days. What made our playing house quite unique however was that beside the 'house' we constructed with linens (which of course upset Mom) was a huge bed sheet neatly spread across the floor. This was our 'swimming pool'. I remember how difficult it was then for us to 'swim' without messing up the 'swimming pool'!
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I recall Mom making sure that my five sisters and I sported short, easily manageable hairstyles. She simply had no time to brush our hair into ponytails and pigtails, more so to keep our hair looking neat and smelling clean. My sisters and I used to envy our neighbors, classmates and friends who had long hair... like princesses.
So we came up with what we thought then was a brilliant solution! Using hairpins, we attached socks (I am no longer certain whether these were clean or used socks though) to our short hair! We would then swing our heads to get the feel of "long hair."
Now that I think about it, we must have looked weird... not unlike the little boy who lives across the street.
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Funny, when you think about it... It's called make-believe when it involves children. But when one becomes an adult, these activities climb to an altogether different level called pretension.
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We see it all around us everyday. But I am not sure if we have really absorbed the full meaning of it all.
I think about writers, like myself, who pretend to possess a mastery of the English language. Probably some are impressed with a language that they cannot understand for what is incomprehensible is generally impressive. I think about beauty queens and boxing champions who do not do justice to themselves with their attempts to express themselves in a language which is not their lingua franca.
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I think about people who dye their hair. I think about matrons who wear body-hugging clothes. I think about men with bulging tummies who wear tight denim pants. As one movie suggests, perhaps we do this because it squeezes the blood to the heart... or maybe to the brains. I am not sure.
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Make-believe, when one is a child, is seen as a desire for the future. Pretension, when one is an adult, is seen as a desire to bring back the past. Make-believe makes children breath freely, strengthening their minds and body. Pretension makes adults hold back their breath, resulting in failed organs and often, mental instability.
I am happy that there is a little boy who lives across the street.
