Where Does the Mind Go?

My brain does its “musings and mental meanderings” at the most unexpected times. Yesterday we were driving north from Vancouver en route to visit family in the Okanagan. Mesmerized by a monotonous landscape of brown rolling hills splashed with old snow my eyes slid into “unseeing” mode. I wasn’t asleep and yet somehow I passed through the town of Kamloops without even noticing. Good thing I wasn’t the one behind the wheel! I have to admit, though, there have been times when I’ve driven from point A to point B without being aware of the journey. It’s a scary phenomenon.

 

This time I was remembering a murderer who escaped into the hills near Merritt and was later found by a hunter and his dogs. My novel-plotting mind went off on a “what if” tangent that took me somewhere other than where the highway was leading.

 

Daydreaming is too bland a term for the disconnection. I wonder if there is a medical term to describe what happens when the brain no longer registers what the eyes are seeing. Talk about losing one’s mind!

Of Books and Bathrooms

Did you know the White House has 132 rooms? When I heard that I veered off into an orgy of home decorating daydreams. What would I do with oodles of extra rooms? After a Christmas season with visiting grandchildren in sleeping bags on the floor, having a few additional bedrooms is appealling. But since I’m giving my imagination free rein I know the first new room would have to become a library.

 

I can picture it clearly: walls lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases accessed by a rolling ladder, a large fireplace fronted by cream-coloured leather recliners and a low circular coffee table to hold my day’s selection of books and a carafe of coffee. There will be a bank of french doors opening to my daytime view of the woods, with luxurious velvet draperies to cozy the mood in the evenings. Of course there won’t be a clock — time restraints don’t exist in my daydream. It will be a generous room with a music nook for the grand piano and cupboards to discreetly contain my mess of music.

 

It’s a grand dream, but as I think more about those 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms on six levels with eight staircases and three elevators, a nightmare begins to emerge. I could easily get lost trying to find a bathroom at 2:00 a.m.!