Poetry Friday: The Word is CHANGE

The Poetry Friday Word for today is CHANGE. Feel free to use the word in your blog post, in whatever form kicks the sand off your flipflops...story, poem, photo, commercial jingle, recipe for iced coffee.

I had a dream last night, just weird enough to embed itself in my brain all day, difficult to shake off. Y'know the kind? Yeah, like that.

Have a good weekend, y'all!


Quick. Change.

I’ve never had a dream like this before. I’ve had thoughts…Joseph Campbell-inspired thoughts…of being the “hero” of a story, how I would swoop down and Save The Day with my brilliant skills of deduction, wit, and a surprising burst of physical prowess I never knew I possessed.

But being a Super Hero? Batman? Wonder Woman? Something with prominent tatas encased in lycra, some Stan Lee wet dream? Never.

Until last night.

The dream started off innocent enough…I was with the family at a Big City Museum…the Guggenheim, perhaps, although it felt more open-air and European…and we were all four going down the marble steps of a labyrinth to the main entrance. Then…the scene changed. I was with my daughter, winding downdowndown flights of steps to a dressing room, to a locker room, to a series of dorm-style bedrooms, with enormous closets and very small beds. I plopped my suitcase down and looked at the other women and girls who were there. They were excited. Nervous. It was a reality show.

A reality show.

Where we became Superheroes.

My daughter disappeared, allegedly to meet up with my husband and son, and I was alone. In this sea of perspiration and giggling and boasting. A loudspeaker, or maybe something I’d read, told me I needed to make a costume. Caught up in a crush of women with the same voice in their heads, I made my way to what looked like a paper towel dispenser in any big-chain restaurant in America, that which spits out heavy brown wrapping to wipe one’s hands on. Only this dispenser doled out blue-green Lycra. Very thin Lycra. I chunked out several yards, and set out to find a sewing machine.

Someone asked me if I’d seen the Renaissance artists in the museum above us. I laughed. Who has time for art when Superhero-ness is on the line?

A woman’s voice, very soothing, came over the loudspeaker, or maybe in my mind, and reminded us all that as Superheroes, we needed to find a place to change. Change our clothes, from Mild-Mannered Soccer Moms to ta-da!...Amazing Woman of Excellence…or whatever we called ourselves, and we had THAT to figure out as well. It was then that I tired of the whole experience. Sew a costume? Find a changing place? A name and persona?

Dude.

I’m already a super woman. I don’t need no stinkin’ reality tv show to tell me that.

All I needed was to find my family.

With that, I picked up my suitcase and started back up a staircase, hoping it would lead me to the museum, to a crush of people, to familiar faces, to the smiles of my beautiful children and handsome husband, where I’d ditch the suitcase and we’d go have lunch. Wander the galleries. And I wouldn’t have to wear Lycra. Or change my name.