Fanciful Fireworks

Whatever happened to the word fanciful to describe the light-hearted, heavily affected and highly entertaining approach to life? F is for that odd, playfully imaginative and whimsical fancy we love. Though somewhat delusional in nature, fanciful America is a quaint illusion that still passes for reality these days.

Our stock market is fanciful when it sets prices higher than the real value. Just about every wedding is fanciful extravagance when you live in a state that recognizes common law marriage. But nothing is more fanciful than TV commercials which try to sell leading technology to ordinary followers, er, consumers.

Wait, please - how did I get so negative about something as precious as fancy? Let me try again. Fanciful is thinking of the angels bowling in heaven or clouds crying themselves dry in a thunderstorm. It's thinking of the Big Bang as God's cosmic fireworks display; and believing the musical note (close to a B-flat), which scientists say originated from a black hole in the Perseus cluster, is the voice of God resounding ("Ommm, ommm, ommm") throughout the universe. It's bringing to mind, in the midst of a staggering statistic, the ditty: Two men looked out from prison bars - one saw mud, the other stars.

For me, the personification of fancy is not to be seen on 'Reality TV' or 'Fantasy Football', but what I have to stealthily maneuver to be able to watch. A child dancing to the music in her head and another fighting the forces of evil as his favorite super-hero. Fancy that - nature and children holding the key to dreams, just as mother and child hold the key to the future.

As for fanciful America, life is what's happening while we're fancifully busy with other things - Imagine that.