What is Real?

Ye Be Warned: Katie's going to rant now.

Another creative writing class, more stuff to work through. I can't say that this class isn't making me question why I do what I do; I'm having to clarify within myself that I write the way I do for some other reason other than the extremely rational "it just feels right." Jon was so kind tonight, God bless him, and I mean that literally, God bless him. Mr. Walker had just asked if anybody had any questions, and Jon asked Mr. Walker if he had any advice for someone in the class who might be geared more towards fantasy to deal with writing about reality. He took the burden of attention off me, and even allowed Mr. Walker to think that it was him that was deficient in this area, not me. I will never, ever forget that.

Mr. Walker's answer was his usual brilliance, and he made a lot of points that did make sense to me. However, one thing that he said did really stick in my memory-he said that he felt like the Inklings had really copped out by not dealing with what was real. Yes, what Lucy experienced behind the wardrobe doors was amazing, but what about the bombs that were falling on London at that very moment? Why didn't he deal with that, instead of witches and lands of eternal winter?

My reply to that is, "Why? Why focus on bombs and battles when you can be focusing on witches and lands of eternal winter? Why? Why? What was going on in Narnia at that point was a metaphor of what was happening in London-it was just told a little different way! What is so almighty important about staying crushed in the cement claws of a mind-numbing existence that you cannot escape?"

I guess I'm coming at this from a different point of view, and I probably feel just as strongly about it as Mr. Walker feels about his views. I strongly believe that without fantasy, more particularly The Lord of the Rings, my soul would be dead, if not my body. Melodramatic statement, you cry! Yeah, right....

I'm fourteen years old. My parents' divorce has been final for a while, but that doesn't help the reality of it. It doesn't help us having to scrimp every cent just to keep our house, just to buy Shelby's medicines. Time hasn't healed the wounds of having to see my father and his new wife building their new, child-proof and therefore, stress-proof, lives together. It isn't keeping me from crying at night, mourning the loss of protection, innocence. Nothing is solid in my life anymore, except the love of my mother and my siblings. Even that isn't enough to keep me from thinking daily, if not hourly, of quitting life altogether.

Don't get me wrong-I was a Christian at this point. Have been since I was five years old. But what people don't seem to realize is that for Christians, suicide is even more tempting. We have none of the doubts that other people face when they contemplate death. I'd been here on earth for a while, and I knew how much it sucked. Why stay in hell, when with a shot of a gun, a slit of a knife, a minute too long underwater, I would be in paradise forever? I would be with Him, a man I knew would never leave me, never stop loving me, and would never replace me by a better model. Tempted by suicide? You bet. Something always held me back-usually it was the thought of never getting married or going to my prom. Maybe an angel was whispering in my ear, keeping my sanity together.

Like I said, I'm fourteen years old. It's my birthday, and I'm sitting in a movie theater between my (then) father figure and my best friend, watching as this weird movie comes on the screen, something called "The Fellowship of the Ring." I can still remember how blown away I was, how I could barely even move in my seat (except when Bilbo did his Gollum-face thing; then I almost fell out of my chair). The characters captured me, enthralled me. For those few hours, divorce and suicide and abandonment didn't exist. I was in Middle-Earth, being escorted by Gandalf and Aragorn and Legolas, trying to defeat an evil that even I couldn't fathom. I felt more alive then, more real, than I had since April 9, 1999, when my dad walked out the door.

Perhaps this is why I react so strongly when Mr. Walker says things like he said about the wardrobe. The fantasy world was, and still remains to be, more real to me than a lot of things in this world. It's a place where magic can be captured, can be held and experienced and allowed to work in ways that a person had never imagined before. Fantasy is a place where God can be met and talked to and experienced, for there is nothing more magical than He. If we didn't have a hope of better things, we would all pull an Ernest Hemingway and blow our brains out. Reality seemed to do wonders for him. Besides, fantasy can be merely another way of viewing reality, as Lucy battled hags and bombs dropped on English rooftops.

I hope that this hasn't been too much for you guys. I hope that my friends won't lose patience with me. But maybe you'll understand now, at least a little, why the fantasy world is so deadly real to me.