Pretend

At the store today I noticed a good-looking, slim baguette of bread. I squeezed it and it felt good. I turned it over and read on the back "French Parisian Bread". Since I had just returned from Paris, I couldn't put the loaf of bread back down again and it wound up in my pushcart.

We ate a lot of French bread in Paris. We ate as much of it as we could. They don't really call it "French Bread" over there, just baguette, but baguettes are all over the place. The best part is that they aren't standardized. No McDonaldization in France! There are bakeries all over the place, every other corner seems to have one, and they all have a slightly different taste. So you can't just have a bite of "French Bread", mark it off on your "France Travel" checklist and go on to the next requirement. No. You have to eat them all. Each one is better than the one before it. The one you are currently eating is always aspiring to fulfill the promises of the one you ate just before it. As delicious as a symphony would be if you could ever actually taste a symphony, full of melodies and rhythms, and counterpoints and when eaten with butter and jam or tapenadas or bits of ham or odoriferous cheeses they resonate with the mellowness of piano and strings and pique with the richness of horn and depth of drums. So I carried home my prize. Just because you have to be separated from the City of Light doesn't mean you have to be separated from its wonderful bread.

When I got home, I ate a small piece of my new bread. A little Dijon mustard was spread on a lightly toasted side of bread after being passed over with cut garlic, then a slice of pepperoni was added and some white vinegar sprinkled on. Then it was all covered with a thin slice of Irish cheese, lightly dusted with oregano flakes and replaced in the oven to all melt together. It was delicious.

Was it as good as the bread I had just eaten in Paris? Yes, yes! Well, it was almost as good. This is where the Pretend comes in. Don't snicker now, Pretend is important. You can use it for a lot more than just bread. To a writer, Pretend IS the bread of life. It is the raison d'etre for dreaming, It finds the richness concealed in the ordinary mess of life. Pretend discovers the hidden jewel that no one else could find. It is the sunlight which brightens sorrow, the happy companion to disappointment, it can reveal the unknown level which is hidden even above happiness, and it can take mediocrity and cover it all over with wonderful memories. To be able to Pretend is to have great power and if you can't Pretend, then you can always play like you can! Yum.