Daydreaming in Second Grade

Ever since I was little I’ve been reading about daydreams. They’re described in stories in schoolbooks, in novels, even in picture books. Always it seems there’s a child in school looking out the window at a blue sky thinking of what he or she might be doing. I never did that.

I never knew how to daydream. I tried. I tried more than once even. I tried especially hard to get the hang of daydreaming when I was in second grade. I was all of seven years old. I thought it was time I knew how. I'd start to think of a place that I'd rather be. Then . . .

I’d get distracted and start thinking about other things.

I’d start thinking about what you’re supposed to be thinking about when you daydream. I’d wonder whether I was daydreaming correctly. I’d look at the kids who sat between me and the classroom window−I never seemed to sit near the window for some reason−and wonder what they daydreamed about. I was sure that they must know the right way to daydream. Other kids seemed to know the right way to do almost everything.

Then I’d think about what their daydreams would be and see all of these Disney-like pictures of kids playing baseball and saying words like “swell” and “gee.” Those day dreams made a perfectly beautiful day seem so . . . so . . . boring.

Then I’d be distracted again wondering what it was like to actually be those kids. Soon enough I would figure out that there would still be a me sitting in my desk wondering what that kid in that other desk was thinking.

Either way, I guess you could say I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in the front of the classroom.

I suppose my teacher would have told my mother I was daydreaming.

Really I wasn’t. I was just thinking.

−me strauss Letting me be