Sylvia's Journal

I slept in and got out of bed at 6:30 this morning. Looking out of the right window I saw blue sky, the Putnam’s house, the cove and a piece of the road. When I looked out of the left window I saw the black silhouettes of trees against a brilliant red and purple sky, the kind of skies that are described in Sci-Fi stories. I think the planet Dune had such skies.

To my right is ordinary reality; to my left is extraordinary reality. I stood there awhile pondering these two, realizing that this had been the theme of my night’s dreams in which I spent time with royalty and famous actors, watching how they fare in their fabled, watched and envied lives. I was like an anthropologist, a participant observer, hanging out with them. It was fun and interesting to see what it is like to live in a bubble. And when I woke up and saw the two different views, I saw the two parallel universes in which we have lived over the past four months or so. I recognized the warm fuzzy feeling of living in a bubble, as we did, the attention, the comfort that is offered, the focus on physical well being. It was just as in my dreams with my royal and famous company. Outside the bubble it was cold and harsh, sometimes, a place to be shielded from.

This week I went back out into ordinary reality. And yet throughout, I was reminded of this other reality, my parallel universe. The telling of the stories to others, their reactions, their disbelief of how well we have recovered, stresses that there is nothing ordinary about us being still here, or me being at work. People told me how they thought I was dead when they first heard of the crash. It is a very odd experience to have people tell you this. It is definitely extraordinary reality. These moments make me take a mental look at the pictures of the crashed plane, they are etched onto my retina, the ones we got from the firefighters in Gardner, and I have to take a deep breath. That was us, in there and look at us now! And then there is the ordinary reality of me getting up early in the morning and going to work. The commute, toll at the Tobin Bridge, getting gas, the traffic jam in front of Spaulding. The old routines at work, the meetings, the coffee machine, lunch downstairs, all that is ordinary reality. It has been there all along, while we were in our cocoon, our bubble, and not much has changed.

Today is probably going to be a mixture of the two realities. It will be partly a workday – the reality of needing to get things done, and partly a day of rest to soothe the body and indulge. This week was quite strenuous with the early rises, the commute and the physical therapy after work. But it will also be extraordinary reality as I can ignore the normal daily routines that most everyone else has to go through today. And for an additional dose of extraordinary reality I think I will finish Harry Potter today.