Imaginary Friends

My friend Cindi (who is NOT imaginary, honest) and her two boys (also NOT imaginary, trust me!) are visiting for a few days; the boys are on Spring Break this week.

Last night at dinner, the younger of her boys, Marshall, switched seats at the table while Cindi and the older boy were out of the room. Peter took that opportunity to declare that he was sitting next to his two imaginary friends (since the chairs on either side of him were now empty.

Neither of my children has ever really had an imaginary friend, but I think they must get that from their Dad, because my family has a long and vibrant history of imaginary friendships. The funny thing about our imaginary friendships, though, is how we enforce the boundaries of the logical and physical world on them.

My brother and sister had imaginary friends named Rumpio and Hippio when they lived in Raleigh; they apparently (it was before my time) LOVED to play with Rumpio and Hippio, and would run to the living room window each morning to wait until they could 'see' them, then scurry outside and play very happily with them. It was all lovely....until my family moved to Durham. Apparently Rumpio and Hippio couldn't make the move, and stayed behind in Raleigh!

The best confluence of the logical and imaginary worlds, though, involves my imaginary friend (whose name, sadly, I cannot remember). I was pushing her on the swing we had one afternoon, when the ropes holding the swing broke, and as we lived on a mountain, the swing went flying down the side of the mountain, crashing into various trees. I figured no one could survive such a tragic swing accident, and that my imaginary friend must be dead, and played with her no more.

I told that story last night at dinner, and it cracked Cindi up. As she put it, "OK, that's all very logical....but it was an IMAGINARY friend!!!!" Yeah, well, apparently I can only imagine so much.