The first inkling that my grasp of reality was less established than my fellow human beings happened while I was watching our 1961 console color TV on the floor of our Elmhurst living room, in Summer, with my parents, auntie and uncle, and the two girl cousins I pretended were my sisters, since I didn’t have any.
Swimming Movie Star Esther Williams came on the screen and since I took swimming lessons, I felt that she was like my sister, too. I am aware today that at 10 years I resembled a beach ball with sunburn while she was a bombshell in gold lame with cherry lips and curvies; but I didn’t see that. What I saw was me, as if I was her. Okay that’s confusing but I think girls who really like Beyonce or someone famous will understand.
I’m telling you I felt me arch and glide and flit and swan dive and smile and even keep my eyes open under water like Esther. I wasn’t actually swimming in my living room in real time but you get the idea. Then out of my mouth popped these words that even today makes me cringe that I let them out into real space:
“I do that!” said me. I was absolutely certain.
From the silence from every other person in our living room, I sensed we all were not sharing the same orbit.
I'd bring up an equally "frozen room" moment from our mutual past, but I'm still too traumatized by it to put it into words. Maybe in another four decades…Mark