Parents paint a background that their children utilize and change. We change our backdrop through time, still relying on the original.

     That's the only explanation I have.  An event occurs to us, me and my husband.  I see it one way.  He sees it another way.  Obviously, we are viewing through different lenses.  Or the "play" is acted out on two separate stages--mine and his--with a different backdrop.
      It's useless to argue whose backdrop is better.  We have both added brushstrokes to the original.  I hope that the settings we gave our children were healthier and better-balanced than those we received. 

     We can argue that lighting and acting and the script form the crux of the production, but the setting, after all, determines whether those other things are valid or silly or incongruent. 

     I envision his parents and hear all the accumulated words--recriminations, rebukes, that fell from their lips.  Their tight-fistedness. Their frowns.  Scalding words.  No wonder he strives to succeed, to justify his existence.  No wonder he responds to my laughter and affirmation.

     I picture my parents and their naive belief in me, their optimism in the face of illness and economic hardship. Their revelry in a sunset, a moolit night, a week of vacation carved away from a year of drudgery.  Their ability to heal their own hurts. I really wish my husband would just come over and play on my stage, abandoning his.  The pleasant backdrop makes any unfolding event a small thing, not a crisis. 
      Now that I reflect, I think all my reading is an attempt to orient my backdrop differently.  How would my life feel in Roman times?  Prehistory?  Regency England?  During the American Civil War?  Am I happy?  Am I successful?  What does God think of my life?  I am glad this play isn't over yet.  There are still some revisions, I suspect.