Rebirth of the Imagination
>> Wednesday, April 07, 2010
When I was a child, I was the strange child. Chubby, quiet, hated sports. My perfect summer day was to lie in the hammock and read, and to make story pictures out of the clouds.
When other children were running and shouting, I liked to pick up the fallen azalea and rhododendron blossoms and imagine them as fairy dresses. I would create gala balls out of the white and pink and purple flowers.
But as I grew up, the world of my imagination receded into memory - all that was left was a few lines noted in a child's diary, a crayon drawing saved by a loving grandmother.
I didn't mourn my lost imagination - all of a sudden there was too much to do and too much to think about. History and biology and literature. When I once would have created whole worlds for Jane Eyre to explore, I was content to write long exegeses on the proto-feminism of Charlotte Bronte. Spanish and Latin replacing the Elvish tongue I invented, and instead of writing poetry, I struggled with trigonometry, finding no rhyme or meaning in numbers.
It has been decades since I have been able to tell myself stories of the wonders in the clouds. I look up into the evening sky and watch the airplanes - alternatively wishing I was heading out on some fantastic journey, or praying that the won't blow up in mid-air.
The years have been kind and not kind...sandwiched between two separate bouts with cancer, I lost my own best cheerleader to her fight with uncontrolled cellular reproduction. Nearly eight years gone now. But happily, I have found satisfaction in a career that doesn't consume my soul. I have friends who will back me to the final wall, true and loyal.
I sit here, wrapped in a robe without glory, and realize that I have reached a place in my life and my mind where I am better than content - I am happy. In that happiness, I find my imagination has been reborn in the act of creation, whether at my workbench, or in story, or in scholarship .
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