Fiction vs Reality
This last week was a vacation. Scheduled back in December because my job requires that we turn in our vacation request by the December 15 of the previous year. I looked at my calendar back then and looked at the dates for Romantic Times, Romance Writers of America and Dragoncon. December was before my novel was going to be published, but I was looking out for ways to get published and set down those three weeks to definitely attend at least one of those conventions.
I made it to Romantic Times, (loved it, by the way! and I’m planning to attends next years.) But, it chewed my wallet and spit it back out again. Empty. I wanted to attend RWA, but just could not do it this year.
Instead, family came to visit. My nephew is 15, this week. He left last Tuesday, after a month visiting. It was treat, he changed before our very eyes. No, seriously, he grew form 5’9” to 5’10 ½” in one month. He has a wicked sense of humor and blessed with parents that taught him exceptional manners, and how important a sense of humor can be in all things. During his visit my niece, who lives about an hour away also came to stay for short periods.
I managed to turn them on to Die Hard & Die Harder. They enjoyed it so much they wanted to see Live Free and Die Hard before Transformers. Die Hard was pretty wonderful, by the way. They, in turn, hooked me on Ninja Warriors.
Teenagers are great to be around for writers. They know the language; the latest “words” and I get a chance to see the world from their snarky eyes, and don’t try to tell me they are not skewered in thier perspective. They can also scrabble decently and try desperately to beat me
I felt a little stressed that my time was not my own and I wanted an extended time period that was just for me. (Yes, there was a definite whine there.)
I returned to work today, thinking I had not really had the ideal vacation, you know, the one where I could sleep in and small, quiet fairies cater to your every whim. I asked one of my favorite nurses if anything happened while I was gone. The usual question, anyone quit, get fired or transfer from our department.
For years I have considered the staff of my emergency room a microcosm of the world. Anything you see on TV has happened to someone that has worked there over the last 16 years and what I was told was all part of that theory.
One of the nurses came home to find her thirteen year old son carrying in her two year old, who he’d just found floating face down in the swimming pool, she was blue. She started CPR while her son called 911. When the medics arrived she had a weak pulse back. She took one look at the medic, one we all know and trust and allowed herself to finally become a stunned and tearful mother. She held it together long enough to save her daughter, but when she knew she could turn her over to others that she trusted, she was just another mother scared out of her mind and heart that she was loosing her child. That was four days ago, her daughter came off the respirator today and they are hopeful for a full recovery.
It is the lesson that it doesn’t happen to the other guy, it’s you and me, it can happen to anyone. It was a reminder that we can be handed any possibilities, and must be strong even when we want to crumble. It is why we want to read fiction, because life is so real and unforgiving.
I was whining because I didn’t get my perfect vacation. I got over it.
I just gave you a reality, wouldn’t you prefer it was an excerpt from fiction? I know I did.
In my head it all seemed to have something to do with why I write. Why we relate so much to characters that have things thrown at them and they rise to meet a challenge or overcome some great sorrow. Or how God is in that nurse, who brought her child back. We read to step out of reality. Or is it to hold a mirror to reality, so that we can see through others eyes, the voyeur, who can be separate of the pain of reality?
Well, I’m just rambling now. (Okay, for a while now.)
What do you think? Is a vacation a week away from the reality of life? Does our desire for the perfect vacation reflect our lives or are they a fiction that we can live for a week or two?
Rhianna Samuels
“Let you laughter be bright
and your love incandescent.”
