I once had a dream where I found an extra room in my house. This was after living there for years: one day I just noticed a door that I had never seen before, and when I opened it, instead of finding some kind of Doctor Who-style monster, I found an extra one hundred square feet. It was wonderful, and I immediately began to drag all of the stuff into it that previously had had no real home: the amps, the spare guitars (and ukeleles, violins and violas), entire bookshelves filled with manga and overdue library books, piles of homework and a dedicated table to do it on. It was such a relief to finally have a place to put all of the stuff that so quickly turned the rest of my house into clutter and confusion. And then I woke up. And I was devastated.
To put my devastation into perspective, I also once had a dream where I got to hang out laughing and drinking with Bob Dylan all night, and even that dream was less disappointing to wake up from than the one about the extra room. Actually, “devastated” really doesn’t even begin to describe it: for days afterward I would look in the corner where I had “discovered” the extra room and feel a sense of loss—why, I asked myself over and over, couldn’t it have just been true? (The thing that finally snapped me out of it was the slow realization that if I did, in fact, have an “extra” room, it, too, would already have been chocked full of crap.)
And so I understand my daughter, Clementine’s, disappointment during the heat wave a few weeks ago when she glared at the thermostat and discovered that, no matter how low she set the numbers, there just wasn’t going to be that satisfying click followed by a soothing burst of cold air. What I didn’t understand though was the fact that none of her dismay was caused by a recent dream about our house having air conditioning; she hadn’t been confused, like I had, by some kind of alternate nocturnal reality. No, she had just never before noticed that we didn’t have any air conditioning.
I used to believe that my children could be anything they wanted to be when they grew up: Presidents of the United States, astronauts, cowboys, Cirque du Soleil performers—whatever they wanted. And I still believe that to be true, with one notable exception: private detective is probably off limits to both of them.
These are people I could hide almost anything in the world from simply by putting it back where it belongs. People who text me from the next room to ask me when I am getting home. People who have not noticed when we have house guests—even after those house guests have been sleeping on the couch for three days. Unobservant doesn’t even begin to cut it.
There is no doubt in my mind that if a tree fell in the forest and my children were not there to hear it it would not make a single peep. At least not to them. Doesn’t matter if Wolf Blitzer himself was there to interview the tree personally: they didn’t hear it, so it didn’t happen.
I suppose in a way it’s better to live your life only concerned with the things that immediately affect YOU and only YOU; I have seen enough people reduced to puddles at the thought of tragedies halfway around the world to know that being hyperaware isn’t all that great either. But still: it would be nice if they found a happy medium.
Preferably one that didn’t involve standing in front of the thermostat and cursing quite so much.