Under the Green Willow

By Ginger Foglesong Guy

Ginger as a child.

I learned to daydream a long time ago. On a fiercely hot Arizona summer day, my two younger sisters and I went inside for lunch. The house was blessedly cool, instant relief from the blistering heat outside. It was over peanut butter sandwiches that my mother broke the news. For the rest of the summer we would spend the two hours after lunch (the two hottest hours of the day) indoors and by ourselves, “developing hobbies and discovering new interests,” she said.

I almost choked on my Kool-Aid. No fair! What would I do for two whole hours without friends, TV, or the telephone?

“There will be many times in your lives when you’ll be alone,” my mother said, “and you might as well start learning how to enjoy your own company.”

For the first few days the two hours after lunch dragged as my sisters and I moved restlessly from one activity to the next, eager to be done with enjoying our own company and to get back to the company of our friends. I felt exiled, isolated, and utterly bored.

By the end of the summer, it was a comfortable ritual. My sister Marcia sat at a little table and captured her world on paper with paints, crayons, and chalk. Heidi memorized poems and performed them, talking into a hairbrush microphone and bowing to an invisible audience. I parked on my bed, reading or filling notebooks with stories and songs all my own. I learned patience as I waited for the words and melodies to come.

My family moved around quite a bit because of my dad’s job (Switzerland, Mexico City, Costa Rica, Virginia), so being the new kid in school was a familiar experience. Coming home from those first new days (hoping I was on the right bus), I knew I could count on my music and writing to ease my worries and restore my confidence.

We made lifelong connections with some of the people we met in those places. As a child, I believed the Chávez, Yánez, and Santellanes families were relatives, just another branch of my Norwegian family tree. My Scandinavian family still celebrates Christmas Eve with a piñata and a feast of tamales, rice, and beans.

Those long-ago hours spent learning to enjoy my own company taught me that we all need time to daydream and build on the gifts of the imagination. They taught me not to fear solitude (a core component of my job description today); that it is possible to be alone and not feel exiled, isolated, or utterly bored.

The fruits of those days are still with me. Today, some of Marcia’s paintings hang on the walls in my house. On my desk is a photograph of Heidi performing before a real audience. Even now, years later, when a summer afternoon is warm and still, a peace settles on me as I pick up my notebook and wait for the words to come.

Ginger Foglesong Guy is the author the popular bilingual books ¡Fiesta! and Siesta. Her most recent book, ¡Bravo! goes on sale today!